A highly readable blend of gaming action and real-world problems.
In the online world of Affinity, gamers play to win.
Four exceptionally talented and highly ranked Affinity players have just learned that the game will be hosting a top-level team tournament with incredible prizes. Though each of the tweens is individually a skilled and successful player, they’ll need to rely on one another to win. Personal issues threaten to get in the way of each team member’s tournament performance. Josh, their leader, has a dad who can’t stand his passion for video games. Larkin is gaming behind her parents’ backs—her home has a strict no video games policy—but she wants nothing more than to become a professional gamer. Hannah’s mom works long hours but still can’t afford high-speed internet, so Hannah games mostly at the public library or at school. Wheatley is hiding a huge secret that may change the way his teammates feel about him and jeopardize his spot on the team. The stakes are high, and the competition is fierce. Each member of the newly christened Weird Ones team must slay their own demons in order to rise to the top. The characterizations and the world of Affinity are well developed and compelling in this ode to virtual gaming and real friendships. Danger’s dynamic artwork adds to the sense of excitement. Josh is Chinese American; other characters are assumed White.
A highly readable blend of gaming action and real-world problems. (game manual, character illustrations) (Fiction. 9-14)Pub Date: June 7, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-43340-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2022
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel.
Sure signs that the creative wells are running dry at last, the Captain’s ninth, overstuffed outing both recycles a villain (see Book 4) and offers trendy anti-bullying wish fulfillment.
Not that there aren’t pranks and envelope-pushing quips aplenty. To start, in an alternate ending to the previous episode, Principal Krupp ends up in prison (“…a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding”). There, he witnesses fellow inmate Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) escape in a giant Robo-Suit (later reduced to time-traveling trousers). The villain sets off after George and Harold, who are in juvie (“not much different from our old school…except that they have library books here.”). Cut to five years previous, in a prequel to the whole series. George and Harold link up in kindergarten to reduce a quartet of vicious bullies to giggling insanity with a relentless series of pranks involving shaving cream, spiders, effeminate spoof text messages and friendship bracelets. Pilkey tucks both topical jokes and bathroom humor into the cartoon art, and ups the narrative’s lexical ante with terms like “pharmaceuticals” and “theatrical flair.” Unfortunately, the bullies’ sad fates force Krupp to resign, so he’s not around to save the Earth from being destroyed later on by Talking Toilets and other invaders…
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-17534-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
An endearing protagonist runs the first, fast leg of Reynolds' promising relay.
Castle “Ghost” Cranshaw feels like he’s been running ever since his dad pulled that gun on him and his mom—and used it.
His dad’s been in jail three years now, but Ghost still feels the trauma, which is probably at the root of the many “altercations” he gets into at middle school. When he inserts himself into a practice for a local elite track team, the Defenders, he’s fast enough that the hard-as-nails coach decides to put him on the team. Ghost is surprised to find himself caring enough about being on the team that he curbs his behavior to avoid “altercations.” But Ma doesn’t have money to spare on things like fancy running shoes, so Ghost shoplifts a pair that make his feet feel impossibly light—and his conscience correspondingly heavy. Ghost’s narration is candid and colloquial, reminiscent of such original voices as Bud Caldwell and Joey Pigza; his level of self-understanding is both believably childlike and disarming in its perception. He is self-focused enough that secondary characters initially feel one-dimensional, Coach in particular, but as he gets to know them better, so do readers, in a way that unfolds naturally and pleasingly. His three fellow “newbies” on the Defenders await their turns to star in subsequent series outings. Characters are black by default; those few white people in Ghost’s world are described as such.
An endearing protagonist runs the first, fast leg of Reynolds' promising relay. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-5015-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
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