Sweetly underscores friendship as a lifeline to self-acceptance.
Four seventh graders help each other find confidence.
After struggling to fit in, Tasha, Billie, Raelynn, and Claire finally found their people at summer camp. But now, they must separate and return to their own challenging realities. Talented hockey player Billie longs to pursue theater, but pressure from his dad holds him back. Claire struggles with shame over her family’s financial hardships and anxiety caused by her father’s volatile anger. Raelynn, who loves gaming but knows it won’t make her popular, is tormented by sibling rivalry and her fraternal twin sister’s rejection. Tasha feels insecure and resentful as her adoptive dads add a recently orphaned niece and her destructive dog to their family. Though their situations differ, the friends are on parallel journeys. Can they find the courage to tackle new experiences and relationships and ultimately be their true selves? Thankfully, they’ve got each other…plus the hot pink feather boa they found on their last night of camp, which they share through the mail whenever one of them needs extra luck. Readers may find wisdom in the validation and vulnerability within their group texts, and they’ll root for Team Canteen as they discover ways to express their feelings and personalities. The chapters rotate among the main characters’ points of view, proceeding through the school year until it’s time to reunite at camp. Raelynn reads Black, and the other leads are cued white.
Sweetly underscores friendship as a lifeline to self-acceptance. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9781645952565
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Pixel+Ink
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An endearing protagonist runs the first, fast leg of Reynolds' promising relay.
Castle “Ghost” Cranshaw feels like he’s been running ever since his dad pulled that gun on him and his mom—and used it.
His dad’s been in jail three years now, but Ghost still feels the trauma, which is probably at the root of the many “altercations” he gets into at middle school. When he inserts himself into a practice for a local elite track team, the Defenders, he’s fast enough that the hard-as-nails coach decides to put him on the team. Ghost is surprised to find himself caring enough about being on the team that he curbs his behavior to avoid “altercations.” But Ma doesn’t have money to spare on things like fancy running shoes, so Ghost shoplifts a pair that make his feet feel impossibly light—and his conscience correspondingly heavy. Ghost’s narration is candid and colloquial, reminiscent of such original voices as Bud Caldwell and Joey Pigza; his level of self-understanding is both believably childlike and disarming in its perception. He is self-focused enough that secondary characters initially feel one-dimensional, Coach in particular, but as he gets to know them better, so do readers, in a way that unfolds naturally and pleasingly. His three fellow “newbies” on the Defenders await their turns to star in subsequent series outings. Characters are black by default; those few white people in Ghost’s world are described as such.
An endearing protagonist runs the first, fast leg of Reynolds' promising relay. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-5015-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
SEEN & HEARD
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious.
If you made a recording to be heard by the aliens who found the iPod, what would you record?
For 11-year-old Alex Petroski, it's easy. He records everything. He records the story of how he travels to New Mexico to a rocket festival with his dog, Carl Sagan, and his rocket. He records finding out that a man with the same name and birthday as his dead father has an address in Las Vegas. He records eating at Johnny Rockets for the first time with his new friends, who are giving him a ride to find his dead father (who might not be dead!), and losing Carl Sagan in the wilds of Las Vegas, and discovering he has a half sister. He even records his own awful accident. Cheng delivers a sweet, soulful debut novel with a brilliant, refreshing structure. His characters manage to come alive through the “transcript” of Alex’s iPod recording, an odd medium that sounds like it would be confusing but really works. Taking inspiration from the Voyager Golden Record released to space in 1977, Alex, who explains he has “light brown skin,” records all the important moments of a journey that takes him from a family of two to a family of plenty.
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-18637-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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