A crackerjack sports yarn that conveys youthful psychology in a way that feels authentic.
An eighth grade basketball player tries to turn around a losing season while wrestling with his worst opponent—his own ego—in this novel.
J.J. Pickett, captain and top scorer of the Traverse Middle School Musketeers basketball team, thinks the so-far winless season will go down the drain when the team’s 6-foot-2 center, Mike Belcher, gets an ankle injury and the coach abruptly quits. These disappointments come on top of other stresses that J.J. faces, including family tensions caused by his dad’s slumping contracting business; competition with his hated rival, Belcher, for the attention of classmate Anita Garcia; and a general, simmering 13-year-old angst. J.J. and his teammates are dubious when Mr. Gumble, the school’s unprepossessing custodian, takes over as coach. But the janitor turns out to be a great mentor who whips the team into shape with grueling line-running drills; teaches the players a scrappy, fast-break game featuring a full-court trap press defense to force adversaries into turnovers; and institutes the corny but stirring rallying cry “All for one, and one for all!” The Musketeers start clawing their way back against bigger teams, but J.J.’s berserk competitiveness, which channels his unhappiness with the world against his opponents, gets him benched, and he’s forced to do so some soul-searching about his attitude. When Mr. Gumble is replaced by Belcher’s jerk of an uncle, J.J. has to figure out a way to restore the team’s order, one that may require him to swallow his pride. McCollum’s energetic tale probes themes of self-awareness and self-restraint, team spiritedness, and players’ love of the game. The narrative features sharply drawn characters, pungent schoolyard dialogue—“You’ve got all the class of a zit, Belchbreath”—and plenty of vigorous play-by-play to hold young basketball fans’ interest. Meanwhile, the author manages to get inside J.J.’s head with prose that’s Hemingway-esque in its spare but penetrating directness: “J.J. had a face that looked younger than he liked. He wanted a hawk’s face, something sharp and fierce. A hawk’s yellow eyes would be cool, too, he thought. He was too small and looked too harmless for what he wanted to be.” The result is an absorbing and perceptive tween-age adventure with considerable literary flair.
A crackerjack sports yarn that conveys youthful psychology in a way that feels authentic.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Brattle Publishing Group
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An authentic and moving time capsule of middle school angst, trauma, and joy.
Through the author’s own childhood diary entries, a seventh grader details her inner life before and after 9/11.
Alyssa’s diary entries start in September 2000, in the first week of her seventh grade year. She’s 11 and dealing with typical preteen concerns—popularity and anxiety about grades—along with other things more particular to her own life. She’s shuffling between Queens and Manhattan to share time between her divorced parents and struggling with thick facial hair and classmates who make her feel like she’s “not a whole person” due to her mixed White and Puerto Rican heritage. Alyssa is endlessly earnest and awkward as she works up the courage to talk to her crush, Alejandro; gushes about her dreams of becoming a shoe designer; and tries to solve her burgeoning unibrow problem. The diaries also have a darker side, as a sense of impending doom builds as the entries approach 9/11, especially because Alyssa’s father works in finance in the World Trade Center. As a number of the diary entries are taken directly from the author’s originals, they effortlessly capture the loud, confusing feelings middle school brings out. The artwork, in its muted but effective periwinkle tones, lends a satisfying layer to the diary’s accessible and delightful format.
An authentic and moving time capsule of middle school angst, trauma, and joy. (author's note) (Graphic memoir. 8-13)Pub Date: Aug. 17, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-250-77427-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
With young readers diagnosed with anxiety in ever increasing numbers, this book offers a necessary mirror to many.
Young Raina is 9 when she throws up for the first time that she remembers, due to a stomach bug. Even a year later, when she is in fifth grade, she fears getting sick.
Raina begins having regular stomachaches that keep her home from school. She worries about sharing food with her friends and eating certain kinds of foods, afraid of getting sick or food poisoning. Raina’s mother enrolls her in therapy. At first Raina isn’t sure about seeing a therapist, but over time she develops healthy coping mechanisms to deal with her stress and anxiety. Her therapist helps her learn to ground herself and relax, and in turn she teaches her classmates for a school project. Amping up the green, wavy lines to evoke Raina’s nausea, Telgemeier brilliantly produces extremely accurate visual representations of stress and anxiety. Thought bubbles surround Raina in some panels, crowding her with anxious “what if”s, while in others her negative self-talk appears to be literally crushing her. Even as she copes with anxiety disorder and what is eventually diagnosed as mild irritable bowel syndrome, she experiences the typical stresses of school life, going from cheer to panic in the blink of an eye. Raina is white, and her classmates are diverse; one best friend is Korean American.
With young readers diagnosed with anxiety in ever increasing numbers, this book offers a necessary mirror to many. (Graphic memoir. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-545-85251-7
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
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