Lacking the intensity of a sustained drive or the urgency of a fourth-and-long play, the story offers more the feeling of...
Wish fulfillment is the order of the day in Lupica’s latest.
Charlie “The Brain” Gaines has an uncanny knack with fantasy-football leagues. Though he lacks the skill to be a standout player on the field, when it comes to his favorite game, no one is a better strategist. No one. Including the professionals. So when Charlie’s best friend and football buddy, Anna, introduces him to her grandfather Joe Warren, Charlie can’t help sharing a bit of insight. You see, Joe Warren happens to own the local football team, the L.A. Bulldogs, and the Bulldogs happen to have a crummy record, and that means they happen to crave advice, even if it comes from a mediocre middle school football player. Lupica plays the “what if” game to posit the notion of a brilliant football mind trapped inside a youthful body. The ploy falls decidedly short, as Charlie’s level of football understanding and insight render him something of a savant. Charlie is far more at ease with football jargon than most middle-grade readers could hope to be.
Expert-level dissection of football mixes with the melodrama of a fatherless boy’s growing attachment to a team owner to contrive an uneven pace.
Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-399-25607-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2014
Salva Dut is 11 years old when war raging in the Sudan separates him from his family. To avoid the conflict, he walks for years with other refugees, seeking sanctuary and scarce food and water. Park simply yet convincingly depicts the chaos of war and an unforgiving landscape as they expose Salva to cruelties both natural and man-made. The lessons Salva remembers from his family keep him from despair during harsh times in refugee camps and enable him, as a young man, to begin a new life in America. As Salva’s story unfolds, readers also learn about another Sudanese youth, Nya, and how these two stories connect contributes to the satisfying conclusion. This story is told as fiction, but it is based on real-life experiences of one of the “Lost Boys” of the Sudan. Salva and Nya’s compelling voices lift their narrative out of the “issue” of the Sudanese War, and only occasionally does the explanation of necessary context intrude in the storytelling. Salva’s heroism and the truth that water is a source of both conflict and reconciliation receive equal, crystal-clear emphasis in this heartfelt account. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-547-25127-1
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2010
SEEN & HEARD
Year-round fun.
Set in 1937 during the so-called “Roosevelt recession,” tight times compel Mary Alice, a Chicago girl, to move in with her grandmother, who lives in a tiny Illinois town so behind the times that it doesn’t “even have a picture show.”
This winning sequel takes place several years after A Long Way From Chicago (1998) leaves off, once again introducing the reader to Mary Alice, now 15, and her Grandma Dowdel, an indomitable, idiosyncratic woman who despite her hard-as-nails exterior is able to see her granddaughter with “eyes in the back of her heart.” Peck’s slice-of-life novel doesn’t have much in the way of a sustained plot; it could almost be a series of short stories strung together, but the narrative never flags, and the book, populated with distinctive, soulful characters who run the gamut from crazy to conventional, holds the reader’s interest throughout. And the vignettes, some involving a persnickety Grandma acting nasty while accomplishing a kindness, others in which she deflates an overblown ego or deals with a petty rivalry, are original and wildly funny. The arena may be a small hick town, but the battle for domination over that tiny turf is fierce, and Grandma Dowdel is a canny player for whom losing isn’t an option. The first-person narration is infused with rich, colorful language—“She was skinnier than a toothpick with termites”—and Mary Alice’s shrewd, prickly observations: “Anybody who thinks small towns are friendlier than big cities lives in a big city.”
Year-round fun. (Fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2000
ISBN: 978-0-8037-2518-8
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2000
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