Will score with readers fond of uncomplicated messages.
In the wake of a triumphant season playing football with the boys, a seventh grade girl faces challenges when she rejoins her old soccer team.
Alex Carlisle is more-or-less prepared for the resentment she encounters from some former squad mates who feel as if she abandoned them the previous fall. But not even a successful tryout and the arrival of an exciting new coach can counter the shocking news that the girls’ spring soccer season (not the boys’, of course) has been cancelled due to budget cuts. Rather than go quietly, though, the girls come up with a chancy scheme to raise the necessary $25,000 through a face-off with the boys’ team, which is led by sneering superstar Chase Gwinn. Following on Triple Threat (2020), this sequel features suspenseful sports action and heroic feats aplenty, but the plot is plainly designed to highlight values that serve both on and off the pitch: Alex works hard to play her very best, to be a good friend, to make the team, and then to make it a true team by turning antagonists into allies willing to bury personal grudges and agendas. If the author’s suggestion that final scores aren’t the only way to measure wins is unconvincing, at least he puts the notion out there for consideration. Names rather than physical cues signal some diversity in a cast well stocked with strong-minded kids.
Will score with readers fond of uncomplicated messages. (Sports fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-984836-92-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: July 7, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
Readers will really feel blasts of wind, water and flying debris in this disaster tale—at least until the narrative cuts off in mid-howl. As (fictional) Hurricane Emily moves toward Florida and his father, an itinerant contractor specializing in weather-disaster prep and repairs, heads for its expected landfall, Chase takes up temporary residence at a “farm” that turns out to be a circus’ winter quarters. Hardly has he reported to the local school, though, than the storm makes a sudden turn and surge that strands him, along with classmates Nicole and Rashawn, in a wrecked bus on a crumbling levee. Writing in clipped prose and dialogue, Smith quickly plunges the three refugees into a desperate struggle to survive floods, darkness, howling gales and even an encounter with a wily alligator on the way to what they hope will be safety. Though the author’s practice of repeatedly cutting away to other characters’ points of view distracts from rather than tightens the suspense, and he abruptly chops off the narrative on a cliffhanger as the storm’s eye passes, Chase and his friends get repeated opportunities to show that they’re made of sturdy stuff. Since they are left sharing a barn with an elephant who is about to give birth as a vicious escaped leopard roams outside, readers are really going to want to find out what happens next. (Adventure. 11-13)
Pub Date: March 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-545-08175-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2011
This mess falls flat even if read as a sendup.
A promising premise—mad scientist recruits children to steal treasures from humanity’s past—isn’t enough to carry a contrivance-ridden plot, poor characterization and a near-total lack of internal logic.
Dispatched by a cruel, vicious quantum physicist named “Uncle,” Caleb spends his days traveling to past eras to fetch collectibles, from an ancient Chinese vase to the first Frisbee, for sale to nebulous clients in the 2060s. Ungar never bothers to explain such details as why such thefts don’t radically change the past or where the copies of artifacts that Caleb and his fellow thieves leave in place of the originals come from. He also casts his protagonist as Uncle’s most successful agent but has him either fail completely or require significant help from allies every time. The author also abandons a set time limit on trips to the past and other internal rules when convenient, adds magical elements such as a pill that wipes only memories necessary to the plot and, for romance, forcibly hooks up his rude, sullen, naïve, inarticulate, jealous and often unwashed teen with Abbie, a beautiful, smarter and far more competent young agent.
This mess falls flat even if read as a sendup. (Science fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: March 15, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-399-25485-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2011
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