by Tim Green ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2016
Solid series fare.
Josh struggles at home and at the plate in this fourth installment of the Baseball Great series.
Buddy and loose cannon Benji is back with more crazy ideas and antics, while Jaden continues her quest for sports journalistic greatness. Josh’s father’s girlfriend, Diane, has faded into the background, and he suddenly wants to pursue his own coaching and recruiting career, dragging Josh with him to Florida from the Syracuse home Josh shares with his mother and baby sister. When his mother loses her job, Josh becomes fixated on a national Home Run Derby that is open to kids in fall ball who hit 20 home runs. The ball not only has to go over the fence, but land in a bathtub and stay there, with the prize a house built by the sponsors, Qwik-E-Builders. The kids’ friendship becomes increasingly important as Josh’s parents squabble over custody and child support, and each has his or her own challenge. Benji is dogged by his new coach to get in shape, Jaden wants to win a journalism contest, and Josh struggles with a hitting slump as well as the distance and hostility that separate his family. Any sports fiction fan who wants plenty of play-by-play will find it here, along with some coaching tips and an exploration of the influence of big business on kids’ sports.
Solid series fare. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-231711-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
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by Tim Green & Derek Jeter
by Sarah Dooley ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 4, 2017
Some readers may feel that the resolution comes a mite too easily, but most will enjoy the journey and be pleased when...
Two sisters make an unauthorized expedition to their former hometown and in the process bring together the two parts of their divided family.
Dooley packs plenty of emotion into this eventful road trip, which takes place over the course of less than 24 hours. Twelve-year-old Ophelia, nicknamed Fella, and her 16-year-old sister, Zoey Grace, aka Zany, are the daughters of a lesbian couple, Shannon and Lacy, who could not legally marry. The two white girls squabble and share memories as they travel from West Virginia to Asheville, North Carolina, where Zany is determined to scatter Mama Lacy’s ashes in accordance with her wishes. The year is 2004, before the Supreme Court decision on gay marriage, and the girls have been separated by hostile, antediluvian custodial laws. Fella’s present-tense narration paints pictures not just of the difficulties they face on the trip (a snowstorm, car trouble, and an unlikely thief among them), but also of their lives before Mama Lacy’s illness and of the ways that things have changed since then. Breathless and engaging, Fella’s distinctive voice is convincingly childlike. The conversations she has with her sister, as well as her insights about their relationship, likewise ring true. While the girls face serious issues, amusing details and the caring adults in their lives keep the tone relatively light.
Some readers may feel that the resolution comes a mite too easily, but most will enjoy the journey and be pleased when Fella’s family figures out how to come together in a new way . (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: April 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-16504-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 31, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
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by Elinor Teele ; illustrated by Ben Whitehouse ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 12, 2016
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish.
The dreary prospect of spending a lifetime making caskets instead of wonderful inventions prompts a young orphan to snatch up his little sister and flee. Where? To the circus, of course.
Fortunately or otherwise, John and 6-year-old Page join up with Boz—sometime human cannonball for the seedy Wandering Wayfarers and a “vertically challenged” trickster with a fantastic gift for sowing chaos. Alas, the budding engineer barely has time to settle in to begin work on an experimental circus wagon powered by chicken poop and dubbed (with questionable forethought) the Autopsy. The hot pursuit of malign and indomitable Great-Aunt Beauregard, the Coggins’ only living relative, forces all three to leave the troupe for further flights and misadventures. Teele spins her adventure around a sturdy protagonist whose love for his little sister is matched only by his fierce desire for something better in life for them both and tucks in an outstanding supporting cast featuring several notably strong-minded, independent women (Page, whose glare “would kill spiders dead,” not least among them). Better yet, in Boz she has created a scene-stealing force of nature, a free spirit who’s never happier than when he’s stirring up mischief. A climactic clutch culminating in a magnificently destructive display of fireworks leaves the Coggin sibs well-positioned for bright futures. (Illustrations not seen.)
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish. (Adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234510-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
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