A feel-good novel about a boy’s first love.
A boy dreams of love and basketball stardom following public embarrassment.
After missing a shot and costing his basketball team a chance at the championship—a humiliation witnessed by his crush, Sierra Mendez—13-year-old Jordan Mendoza is sitting by the canal, nursing his injured ego, when he spots a puppy struggling in the water. Jordan saves the puppy and later, guided by a dream, finds a second one. When Coach emails with news that their team will compete in the playoffs after all, Jordan anticipates his possible redemption. In fact, after he scores the winning basket, Sierra invites him to volunteer cleaning up litter with her the next day. That night, another dream sends Jordan back to the canal, where he finds a partially submerged car, a discovery that leads to yet another puppy in need of rescue. But just before his meeting with Sierra, the police, investigating the car and the drug-related crimes linked to it, arrive and bring Jordan in for questioning. The investigation, Jordan’s relationship with Sierra, and the championship game intertwine in a headlong rush toward a satisfying, bittersweet ending. Employing a close-third-person narration centered on Jordan, Soto skirts thorny social issues, which are only ever hinted at through the parents’ reactions. Lighthearted storytelling punctuated with humor makes this novel an enjoyable read. Most characters appear to be Latine.
A feel-good novel about a boy’s first love. (Fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: June 13, 2023
ISBN: 9780063267787
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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Compulsively readable; morally uncomfortable.
Six New Jersey 12-year-olds separated by decades race to ensure the “good guys” win World War II in this middle-grade work by the author of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and her brother, a children's author and journalist.
It all starts with a ham radio that Alice, Lawrence, and Artie fool around with in 1944 and Henry, Frances, and Lukas find in 2023. It’s late April, and the 1944 kids worry about loved ones in combat, while the 2023 kids study the war in school. When, impossibly, the radio allows the kids to communicate across time, it doesn’t take long before they share information that changes history. Can the two sets of kids work across a 79-year divide to prevent the U.S.A. from becoming the Nazi-controlled dystopia of Westfallen? This propulsive thriller includes well-paced cuts between times that keep the pages turning. Like most people in their small New Jersey town, Alice, Artie, and Frances are white. In 1944, Lawrence, who’s Black, endures bigotry; in the U.S.A. of 2023, Henry’s biracial (white and Black) identity and Lukas’ Jewish one are unremarkable, but in Westfallen, Henry’s a “mischling” doing “work-learning,” and Lukas is a menial laborer. Alice’s and Henry’s dual first-person narration zooms in on the adventure, but readers who pull back may find themselves deeply uneasy with the summary consideration paid to the real-life fates of European Jews and disabled people. The cliffhanger ending will have them hoping for more thoughtful treatment in sequels to come.
Compulsively readable; morally uncomfortable. (Science fiction/thriller. 10-13)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9781665950817
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
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