A winning tale, all the more exhilarating for its links to history.
Girls’ basketball gets off to a rocky start at an Indiana high school in the wake of Title IX.
Basing his debut graphic novel on a true story, Tavares follows a small group of enthusiasts and their resourceful art teacher who moonlights as the girls’ basketball coach, from tryouts that are shuffled off to the elementary school’s gym through dogged practices and hard-fought games all the way to the 1976 state championship. Both the art and the plot are spare and cleanly drawn—the former featuring spacious compositions and easy-to-follow action both on and off the boards. The latter focuses on the friendship that develops between Judi and her teammate Lisa as the Lady Bears (“Why is it always Lady Bears?” a teammate complains, “nobody ever calls the boys’ team the Gentleman Bears”), lacking even jerseys until late in the season and riding to away games in their coach’s uncle’s RV because no bus has been authorized, gradually build a following. They ultimately earn a public apology from the dismissive athletic director and, reuniting during a college break three years later, have the satisfaction of seeing the bleachers in their old high school well filled for a girls’ game. Like the overtly sexist attitudes, which get light but firmly visible exposure, the artist suggests his cast’s racial diversity rather than highlighting it through differences in skin tone and hair texture.
A winning tale, all the more exhilarating for its links to history. (author’s note) (Graphic fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: March 14, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0136-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
An emotional, much-needed historical graphic novel.
Sandy and his family, Japanese Canadians, experience hatred and incarceration during World War II.
Sandy Saito loves baseball, and the Vancouver Asahi ballplayers are his heroes. But when they lose in the 1941 semifinals, Sandy’s dad calls it a bad omen. Sure enough, in December 1941, Japan bombs Pearl Harbor in the U.S. The Canadian government begins to ban Japanese people from certain areas, moving them to “dormitories” and setting a curfew. Sandy wants to spend time with his father, but as a doctor, his dad is busy, often sneaking out past curfew to work. One night Papa is taken to “where he [is] needed most,” and the family is forced into an internment camp. Life at the camp isn’t easy, and even with some of the Asahi players playing ball there, it just isn’t the same. Trying to understand and find joy again, Sandy struggles with his new reality and relationship with his father. Based on the true experiences of Japanese Canadians and the Vancouver Asahi team, this graphic novel is a glimpse of how their lives were affected by WWII. The end is a bit abrupt, but it’s still an inspiring and sweet look at how baseball helped them through hardship. The illustrations are all in a sepia tone, giving it an antique look and conveying the emotions and struggles. None of the illustrations of their experiences are overly graphic, making it a good introduction to this upsetting topic for middle-grade readers.
An emotional, much-needed historical graphic novel. (afterword, further resources) (Graphic historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5253-0334-0
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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