An action-packed, heartfelt story that elucidates the importance of mental health care to young athletes.
Major league baseball player Stroman’s semiautobiographical series starter follows a talented young athlete who learns to handle anxiety on and off the field.
It’s the summer before middle school, and Marcus—who shares a name with the book’s author—is enjoying participating in practice camps for both baseball and basketball until his baseball coach hits the team with an announcement: The players must undergo an “assessment” to earn a spot on the spring team. Meanwhile, though his parents’ divorce is amicable—even as they deal with the strict schedules and expenses required for elite athletics—the separation of their households adds even more pressure for a kid already striving for perfection. With his assessment looming, small things find their ways under Marcus’ skin more easily, leading his perceptive mom to schedule him a visit with a mental health coach who teaches him to cope with the stress of high expectations. While not everything depicted here happened to Stroman, he shares much with his earnest protagonist, like his determination and uncertainties. The author’s note works to destigmatize and normalize mental health care. Practice and game-play details and an entertaining if not particularly deeply developed cast of secondary characters are assets to the pacing. Hints in the text suggest that Marcus, like the author (the son of a Puerto Rican mother and Black father), is biracial.
An action-packed, heartfelt story that elucidates the importance of mental health care to young athletes. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2023
ISBN: 9781665916141
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and...
Catrina narrates the story of her mixed-race (Latino/white) family’s move from Southern California to Bahía de la Luna on the Northern California coast.
Dad has a new job, but it’s little sister Maya’s lungs that motivate the move: she has had cystic fibrosis since birth—a degenerative breathing condition. Despite her health, Maya loves adventure, even if her lungs suffer for it and even when Cat must follow to keep her safe. When Carlos, a tall, brown, and handsome teen Ghost Tour guide introduces the sisters to the Bahía ghosts—most of whom were Spanish-speaking Mexicans when alive—they fascinate Maya and she them, but the terrified Cat wants only to get herself and Maya back to safety. When the ghost adventure leads to Maya’s hospitalization, Cat blames both herself and Carlos, which makes seeing him at school difficult. As Cat awakens to the meaning of Halloween and Day of the Dead in this strange new home, she comes to understand the importance of the ghosts both to herself and to Maya. Telgemeier neatly balances enough issues that a lesser artist would split them into separate stories and delivers as much delight textually as visually. The backmatter includes snippets from Telgemeier’s sketchbook and a photo of her in Día makeup.
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and unable to put down this compelling tale. (Graphic fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-545-54061-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
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