RED ZONE

There’s no modesty going to waste here as the Barber twins star as themselves in another in their series of football hero tales. Here, Tiki and Ronde are eighth graders hoping for a run to the state championships. However, football fever has hit Hidden Valley Junior High School—literally, in the form of chicken pox—and when players start coming down with the pox, Tiki and Ronde fear the worst: If they get sick, what will the team do without its best athletes? Along with the usual sports messages of teamwork, hard work, keeping the faith, dreams and picking yourself up when you don’t succeed, the novel adds didacticism and narcissism to the mix. Still, lots of football action, an exuberant use of exclamation points and a plot that runs like a footrace for the end zone will keep credulous young readers flying through the pages. And with ninth grade still ahead for the Barbers, more volumes are likely in the works. (Fiction. 8-12)