A sports tale infused with moments of Christian prayer and frequent lessons in morality that never establishes itself as a...
Two teenage boys struggle to shine on their varsity football team even while their own friendship suffers after one of them is injured.
Archie F. Carr School is unusual in that it serves all students grades one through 12 in Lincoln, Fla. This means that the varsity football team is potentially open to even eighth-graders like Chase. He’s thrilled when he’s asked to start practicing with the varsity team and attend their games as a backup quarterback, but this realization of his dream doesn’t come without a price. His best friend, Tripp, suffers a head injury on the field, and when Chase tells the truth about the severity of the concussion, Tripp ends the friendship. Will their bond be strong enough to weather the rough patches? Whitaker’s (Uncommon Marriage, 2014, with Tony and Lauren Dungy, etc.) foray into middle-grade fiction never manages to break free of its flat tone. The characters, both children and adults, display a lack of energy, even on the football field. Their dialogue is stiff and monotonous. Emotional issues that deserve center stage—such as Chase’s fraught relationship with his dad and his sister’s recurring nightmare—are mostly ignored in favor of play-by-play accounts of football losses and wins.
A sports tale infused with moments of Christian prayer and frequent lessons in morality that never establishes itself as a realistic account of young teens, either on the field or off. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: July 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-310-73700-1
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Zonderkidz
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2014
An accessible delivery helps this issues-driven novel go down.
Sometimes everything happens at the same time.
Gavin, Randi, Natalie, Trevor, and Scott are back following The Perfect Secret and The Perfect Score (2018, 2017), and, as previously, myriad topics of varying seriousness are addressed through the various characters’ points of view. Characters contemplate sports injuries, football strategies, and sportsmanship; having a female football coach and the accompanying sexism; maintaining friendships while experiencing budding romance; having a teacher who is pregnant; utilizing video and social media; being a target of bullying; supporting a friend; forgiving and helping someone despite their past negative behavior; having a hospitalized parent; being uninsured; overcoming racist attitudes; dealing with death and celebrating life; appreciating people without regard to their age; being assertive; helping others; achieving goals; raising money; and making a difference. This is a safe if not always realistic world, one where bad things may happen but most adults are accessible and helpful, people who misbehave tend to see the error of their ways, all are eventually open to reconciliation, difference is ultimately celebrated, and effort determines the ability to bring about positive change. While the sheer volume of issues prevents a deep dig into most of them, the characters (seemingly default white except for biracial Latinx Gavin) are appealing, and the various strands all come together in the end.
An accessible delivery helps this issues-driven novel go down. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6463-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Ambitious but of mixed success.
Seventh-grader Jane Silverman becomes a sidekick to the girl in her middle school who has taken on a fearless superhero persona.
Narrator Janey, who’s white, and her classmates are witness to the constant bullying that alpha girl Dagmar, also white, inflicts on their classmate Paige, who is African-American (“For as long as I can remember,” Paige tells Janey, “Dagmar’s been awful to me”). Dagmar’s star status at the school keeps her from being recognized as the bully she is until Capt. Superlative appears in the hallways, performing generous acts of kindness, courage, and recognition. Janey, who has been flying under the radar since her mother’s death from cancer a few years earlier, discovers through some sleuthing that the girl in the homemade superhero costume is a classmate, Chinese-born Caitlyn Li. The two girls team up to offer study guides and mints, door opening and other small courtesies, and general encouragement to the student body. Revelations abound, including the reasons behind Caitlyn’s act, which hit Janey hard, and behind Dagmar’s bullying of Paige. Ultimately Caitlyn, Janey, and Paige heroically disrupt Dagmar’s reign of terror and create a legacy for Capt. Superlative. This fairly believable middle school drama is punctuated with poignancy and humor—but the casting of the one African-American character as victim and the masking of the book’s other significant character of color sound discordant notes.
Ambitious but of mixed success. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: May 8, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-368-00427-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
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