A peppy, inspirational tale with a sports backdrop.
A young baseball superfan realizes his dream, but is he up to the challenge?
Alex Weakerman comes by his love of baseball naturally. His elderly Grandpa Ira owns the Weakerville, Iowa, Hurricanes, “the greatest independent professional baseball team in the whole world,” in Alex’s not-so-humble opinion. This doesn’t mean that Alex is a skilled athlete. He still harbors memories of childhood sports ineptitude under the watchful eye of Aliyah Perkins, the sportiest girl in Weakerville. When Ira passes away, the team is inherited by his brother-in-law, wealthy (and very tan) used-car magnate Parnell “Tex” Cohaagen, who is as flamboyant as his name implies. Alex fears for the team’s future, doubly so when Ira’s will stipulates the firing of Hurricanes manager Buddy LeForge. Tex pitches a mind-blowing curveball when he reveals Ira’s second stipulation: that Alex be hired as the team’s manager. Buoyed by the encouragement of his best bud, Slips, Alex stumbles into the unknown, one step at a time. With Ira’s notes to guide him and a newly enlisted Aliyah also at his side, how can he possibly fail? Rylander fills his warm coming-of-age story with crackly sports slang and tucks colorful minor characters into the nooks and crannies. Lovable nerd Alex is an ideal first-person narrator, infusing his tale with wonder and joy as well as an insider’s knowledge of the game. Slips immigrated from Poland; characters seem to default to White.
A peppy, inspirational tale with a sports backdrop. (Fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: June 21, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-232750-5
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
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
BOOK REVIEW
Problem-solving through perseverance and friendship is the real win in this deeply smart and inspiring story.
Leaving Brooklyn behind, Black math-whiz and puzzle lover Bree starts a new life in Florida, where she’ll be tossed into the deep end in more ways than one. Keeping her head above water may be the trickiest puzzle yet.
While her dad is busy working and training in IT, Bree struggles at first to settle into Enith Brigitha Middle School, largely due to the school’s preoccupation with swimming—from the accomplishments of its namesake, a Black Olympian from Curaçao, to its near victory at the state swimming championships. But Bree can’t swim. To illustrate her anxiety around this fact, the graphic novel’s bright colors give way to gray thought bubbles with thick, darkened outlines expressing Bree’s deepest fears and doubts. This poignant visual crowds some panels just as anxious feelings can crowd the thoughts of otherwise star students like Bree. Ultimately, learning to swim turns out to be easy enough with the help of a kind older neighbor—a Black woman with a competitive swimming past of her own as well as a rich and bittersweet understanding of Black Americans’ relationship with swimming—who explains to Bree how racist obstacles of the past can become collective anxiety in the present. To her surprise, Bree, with her newfound water skills, eventually finds herself on the school’s swim team, navigating competition, her anxiety, and new, meaningful relationships.
Problem-solving through perseverance and friendship is the real win in this deeply smart and inspiring story. (Graphic fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: May 17, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-305677-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HarperAlley
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
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