A relationship-driven story let down by limited characterization.
A middle school basketball player enters a season of strife off the court.
Star power forward Jordan Ryker feels more at home on the basketball court than anywhere else. His parents fight constantly about everything, but especially money with the imminent shutdown of the local automotive plant where his dad works. After every argument, his mom vents her feelings to him, while his ever calm father drives off in his rebuilt ’69 Camaro. At least Jordan can count on Junior, his best friend. When Jordan’s parents announce their separation, even basketball season can’t distract him from his overwhelming home life. Complicating his feelings further, he learns his dad is gay and dating a man. Through Jordan’s first-person point of view, the women and girls in the story are portrayed one dimensionally as highly emotional, an outspoken feminist who doesn’t fit in with other girls, and an attention-seeking flirt. Aspects of Junior’s identity only reveal themselves to serve as sources of conflict. Basketball action plays second string to interpersonal drama, most of which comes as a consequence of Jordan’s father’s coming out. Although Jordan does experience character growth, it happens all at once in a sudden transformation before the resolution. The book follows a White default; Junior is described as half Filipino (the rest of his parentage is not specified).
A relationship-driven story let down by limited characterization. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: March 15, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-4598-2713-4
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: Jan. 10, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
A tween gets in over his head in this introspective and nostalgic story.
Thirteen-year-old Joey Goodman spends every August in Atlantic City, New Jersey, at his grandparents’ hotel.
It’s 1975, and the city is soon to become a gambling resort as old hotels are replaced with casinos. Joey’s passion is playing Skee-Ball at the boardwalk arcades. There, he attracts the attention of shady Artie Bishop, known as the king of Steel Pier, and becomes involved in Bishop’s unspecified criminal activities. Suave Artie engages Joey in conversation about the boy’s favorite book, The Once and Future King, and Joey begins to regard him almost as a new King Arthur. Artie offers him a job chaperoning his daughter, Melanie, when she comes to visit. After Joey finishes his unpaid waiter’s shift at the hotel restaurant each day, he lies to his family, meets Melanie, and they explore the piers’ seedy amusements. Joey falls for 15-year-old Melanie, and she regards him fondly but is attracted to his older brother Reuben. The close-knit Jewish family of four bickering brothers, parents, uncle, and grandparents (especially wise grandpa Zeyde) is lovingly portrayed. The descriptions of Joey’s ponderings about God (he’s had his bar mitzvah but is undecided) and Artie’s business dealings may not hold young readers’ interest, and the immersive setting could appeal more to adults old enough to remember the time and place. All characters are presumed White.
A tween gets in over his head in this introspective and nostalgic story. (author’s note) (Fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-72843-034-8
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Kar-Ben
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
A superb historical thriller.
Thirteen-year-old Paolo Crivelli dreams of being a hero in Nazi-occupied Florence.
It’s a tricky business living in an occupied city. The Allies are advancing from the south, Paolo’s father is missing (thought to be fighting for the Partisans), and the Crivelli family is caught between the Nazi occupiers and the sometimes ruthless Partisans. This first novel by acclaimed children’s picture-book writer and illustrator Hughes expertly captures the tension in the Crivelli home, as Rosemary tries to raise her two children and keep them safe while covertly supporting the Partisan cause. Not so easy with a son like Paolo, who risks sneaking out at night on his bicycle, looking for his own way to be a hero for the cause. There are plenty of heroes here, as layers of resistance to the Nazis are carefully delineated—the obvious bold resistance of the Partisans in the countryside, Rosemary’s agreement to house escaped prisoners of war in her cellar, a lifesaving tip from the captain of the local military police and even a sympathetic member of the Gestapo who conveniently finds nothing when searching the Crivellis’ cellar. The townspeople, a dog and even Paolo’s bicycle play a role in the resistance movement, though the dangers and the realities of war are always tangible in this fine novel.
A superb historical thriller. (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: April 23, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6037-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Jan. 15, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2013
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