Full of Broadway numbers and ’90s rock; a fun musical adventure with well-meaning disability representation.
An Australian 11-year-old is afraid it will break his mum’s heart if she learns he loves Broadway more than rock.
Mac Fleetwood Cooper and his brother, Stevie Nick Cooper, have a mother who’s a tiny bit into rock music. With his mum bent on living out her own frustrated Gwen Stefani rocker dreams through her sons, Mac knows she’ll never approve of his fascination with Broadway musicals. So the Secret Society of Broadway Musical Appreciation is like a dream come true. Mac becomes instant best friends with the SSOBMA pianist and composer, Flynn. Flynn, who’s a year older than Mac, has Tourette syndrome, a willingness to answer questions about it, and an extremely sunny disposition. This positivity comes in handy when the kids learn their school is canceling the arts program and SSOBMA plans a fundraising musical to save the arts. If only Mac can take part without his mother’s finding out. Flynn goes out of his way to explicitly debunk myths about Tourette, but his constant complex vocal tics still play into some overused Tourette tropes. Plotlines from earlier books in the series appear in the tidy conclusion without having had any real presence or explanation in this third series outing that nevertheless stands on its own. Characters are minimally described, but names cue some ethnic diversity in the cast.
Full of Broadway numbers and ’90s rock; a fun musical adventure with well-meaning disability representation. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2023
ISBN: 9780861545711
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Rock the Boat/Oneworld
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
Medically, both squicky and hopeful; emotionally, unbelievably squeaky-clean.
A 12-year-old copes with a brain tumor.
Maddie likes potatoes and fake mustaches. Kids at school are nice (except one whom readers will see instantly is a bully); soon they’ll get to perform Shakespeare scenes in a unit they’ve all been looking forward to. But recent dysfunctions in Maddie’s arm and leg mean, stunningly, that she has a brain tumor. She has two surgeries, the first successful, the second taking place after the book’s end, leaving readers hanging. The tumor’s not malignant, but it—or the surgeries—could cause sight loss, personality change, or death. The descriptions of surgery aren’t for the faint of heart. The authors—parents of a real-life Maddie who really had a brain tumor—imbue fictional Maddie’s first-person narration with quirky turns of phrase (“For the love of potatoes!”) and whimsy (she imagines her medical battles as epic fantasy fights and pretends MRI stands for Mustard Rat from Indiana or Mustaches Rock Importantly), but they also portray her as a model sick kid. She’s frightened but never acts out, snaps, or resists. Her most frequent commentary about the tumor, having her skull opened, and the possibility of death is “Boo” or “Super boo.” She even shoulders the bully’s redemption. Maddie and most characters are white; one cringe-inducing hallucinatory surgery dream involves “chanting island natives” and a “witch doctor lady.”
Medically, both squicky and hopeful; emotionally, unbelievably squeaky-clean. (authors’ note, discussion questions) (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62972-330-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Shadow Mountain
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
Simplistic, but a straight shot on goal.
Despite poor first impressions, an aggressive new student earns a spot as goalkeeper on the local soccer team.
Loud, pushy new arrival Shane definitely seems to come with an attitude problem in this simple tale, told from the perspective of one of Shane’s teammates and originally published in 2021 in the U.K. A few days later, however, the source of the chip on his shoulder becomes clear when the North Park Juniors take the pitch. When Shane shows up to play, his bossy, verbally abusive stepfather, Mick, is in tow, screaming orders and insults from the sidelines. The story, which is printed with what the publisher calls “dyslexia-friendly fonts and paper tones,” is laid out with extra spacing between the short sentences and paragraphs. The author also takes multiple breaks to examine historical feats and foibles of renowned goalies of the past. The plot goes on to follow a fairly direct course. After the police haul Mick away in the wake of a chair-throwing tantrum, a more emotionally stable Shane shows up the following weekend to perform heroic exploits in a hard-fought climactic match. Physical descriptions in the text are minimal; young players and adults in Chalik’s frequent illustrations are woodenly drawn but feature a mix of light- and dark-skinned faces.
Simplistic, but a straight shot on goal. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781454954842
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
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