A satisfying baseball story that never minimizes the challenges of autism but celebrates skill, determination, and love for...
Eleven-year-old Vivian Jane Cohen has autism but she also throws a mean knuckleball and yearns to play baseball.
Vivy first learned of the knuckleball three years ago, at an autism event where then–minor league pitcher VJ Capello showed her how to hold the ball the right way, but she mastered it on her own. Now a coach has seen her throwing to her older brother, Nate, and invited her to join his team. Although she initially begins writing to VJ to fulfill a school assignment, little expecting a reply, magically, he begins to write back. This vivid epistolary tale captures Vivy’s growing sense of her own capabilities as she discovers that she can mostly hold her own on a boys’ team, even though she has to deal with cruel bullying from the coach’s obnoxious son. It helps that her catcher, Alex, accepts her fully and offers warm, believable encouragement as she finds ways to push back against her overprotective mother’s smothering management. Just as helpful are VJ’s insights on pitching, bullying, and life in general as he struggles with his own uncertainties. Vivy, Nate, and their parents are white and Jewish. VJ is black and Alex, Mexican American, offering opportunities for reflection on discrimination’s many facets, while in a subplot, Nate comes out as gay to their accepting parents.
A satisfying baseball story that never minimizes the challenges of autism but celebrates skill, determination, and love for the game. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-55418-9
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An exploration of devotion and finding one’s voice.
A young vocalist with a divine gift has a crisis of faith.
Elissa, a 12-year-old Singer with a mane of blond curls, has a special ability: She can channel the goddess Caé through song and create miracles. With her Composer, Lucio, she travels through the war-torn lands, helping to repair and heal, all while spreading the love of the Goddess. Only allowed to sing, Elissa secretly begins to compose her own songs and discovers that they hold immense power. When the two warring kingdoms of Basso and Acuto learn of Elissa’s abilities, they each hope to weaponize her talents to ensure their own victories. While Elissa wants the war to end, she knows that Caé wouldn’t want her to use her talents for destructive purposes, leaving her to ruminate over the Goddess’ true intentions for her. Bakewell’s medieval-tinged fantasy draws heavily on religious themes, exploring the struggle of having faith in the unseen. Music factors prominently throughout, with the text relying heavily on musical terminology (even using quarter rests for scene breaks); a glossary may have been helpful for those less acquainted with their meaning. At times, Elissa, with her wide-eyed innocence and Pollyanna-ish spirit, can feel a bit facile and without nuance. Elissa and Lucio are default White; secondary and minor characters are diverse in skin tone and sexuality.
An exploration of devotion and finding one’s voice. (author’s note) (Fantasy. 9-12)Pub Date: April 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4889-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Packs a powerful punch.
Sometimes you must risk everything to find out who matters.
Tully has her mother’s nose and auburn hair—and even her mother’s maiden name as her given name. Tully is also athletic and competitive like her mother. She’s been swimming competitively since she was 6, and now, at 12, she’s encouraged by her mother to be the youngest person ever to swim across Lake Tahoe. But then Mom stops taking her meds, begins exercising obsessively, and suddenly leaves without saying goodbye. Seeing Dad “swallowed up / in the glow of his computer screen,” Tully decides that if she succeeds in swimming across Lake Tahoe, her mother will come back, “Because I am a winner / and I can do HARD THINGS.” Tully trains in secret, and early one July morning, she sets out across the lake with her best friend, Arch, kayaking alongside her. Laid out in parts titled “Hour One,” “Hour Two,” and so on, this accessible but sometimes overly obvious story pulls readers into the heart of a grueling 12.1-mile swim. As Tully struggles mentally with the confusion and guilt brought on by her mother’s departure and she thrashes her way across a suddenly stormy lake while Arch yells at her to quit, she comes to an honest assessment of herself—and her mother. The varied and creative layout of the text adds an interesting component to the free-verse, present-tense narrative, told from Tully’s first-person point of view. Characters read white.
Packs a powerful punch. (Verse fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781665935067
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
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