Buoyant and breathless, scoring on several levels.
Competitive action aplenty drives the continuation of Dawson’s celebration of hard work, teamwork, and the joy of winning to a triumphant close.
Switching back and forth using flashbacks keyed to a change of palette, the author twines two storylines—one featuring Lori Block, who is now a sixth grader sharpening her b-ball skills on both a travel team and rec league squads, and the other looking back at her mom at roughly the same age riding roughshod over both opponents and teammates on the soccer pitch. Along with dishing out mixes of precisely drawn technical pointers and fast break action in the tight but easily legible panels, the author fills the interludes between practices and games with stressful family changes for both girls. He also gives both such identically fierce, intense expressions when they’re playing that it may come as a surprise to readers to see Lori and opponent Elyse exchanging grins after a hard-fought game or her mom and stepaunt Miriam laughing at a Passover seder over their once-fraught experiences as teammates and stepsisters. The reminder that amateur sports should be, above all else, fun is well taken. Also salutary is the appended graphic salute to Title IX’s half-century of impact. Lori and her family are White; the supporting cast of teachers, coaches, young players, and other students is portrayed with a mix of light and dark skin.
Buoyant and breathless, scoring on several levels. (Graphic fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-24434-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: First Second
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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