An engaging, sports-focused, family-driven Japanese spin on the new-kid-in-school narrative.
A 13-year-old boy struggles to save his baseball team, help care for his grandfather, and avoid bullies in Tokushima, Japan, in this middle-grade novel.
For Matsumoto Satoshi, his passion for baseball is the one thing he can count on to help him fit in at Tokushima Whirlpool Junior High School after growing up in Atlanta. It also connects him to Oji-chan, his grandfather, who is struggling with dementia but who still remembers vast amounts of baseball trivia. When Satoshi learns that his team might get cut if it fails to win a tournament, he becomes determined to help save it. But this isn’t easy, especially since teammate Shintaro constantly finds reasons to harass him for his American habits. Satoshi’s English teacher also singles him out in class, at one point hitting him with a notebook. Fearing further alienation, Satoshi pushes away Misa, a kind classmate whose mixed Japanese and American ancestry makes her a target of bullying, and he avoids the other English-speaking students. He also conceals his younger sister Momoko’s deafness and use of a wheelchair from his peers out of fear that he will be harassed—a concern that turns out to be justified. When a mistake in a game puts Satoshi’s position on the team in question, he has to decide who and what really matters to him. Kamata (Indigo Girl, 2019, etc.) provides plenty of action-heavy baseball scenes for sports fans and includes details about the Japanese history and traditions of the game. At the same time, Satoshi’s commitment to his grandfather and his anxieties about failing to conform are emotionally realistic and complex and will resonate with readers who are facing isolation in a new place. Passages about Momoko unfortunately focus more on what other people do to help her than on her individual voice. The characters are Japanese or part Japanese with the exception of one white American teacher. Bishop’s (Great Grandpa Is Weird, 2016) intermittent manga-influenced, gray-tone illustrations deftly highlight action or emotion in key scenes, sometimes using multiple panels and comic-book dialogue; the style emphasizes the characters’ youth.
An engaging, sports-focused, family-driven Japanese spin on the new-kid-in-school narrative.Pub Date: March 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-947159-36-5
Page Count: 208
Publisher: One Elm Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Themes of freedom and responsibility twine between the lines of this short but heavy novel from the author of Because of Winn-Dixie (2000). Three months after his mother's death, Rob and his father are living in a small-town Florida motel, each nursing sharp, private pain. On the same day Rob has two astonishing encounters: first, he stumbles upon a caged tiger in the woods behind the motel; then he meets Sistine, a new classmate responding to her parents' breakup with ready fists and a big chip on her shoulder. About to burst with his secret, Rob confides in Sistine, who instantly declares that the tiger must be freed. As Rob quickly develops a yen for Sistine's company that gives her plenty of emotional leverage, and the keys to the cage almost literally drop into his hands, credible plotting plainly takes a back seat to character delineation here. And both struggle for visibility beneath a wagonload of symbol and metaphor: the real tiger (and the inevitable recitation of Blake's poem); the cage; Rob's dream of Sistine riding away on the beast's back; a mysterious skin condition on Rob's legs that develops after his mother's death; a series of wooden figurines that he whittles; a larger-than-life African-American housekeeper at the motel who dispenses wisdom with nearly every utterance; and the climax itself, which is signaled from the start. It's all so freighted with layers of significance that, like Lois Lowry's Gathering Blue (2000), Anne Mazer's Oxboy (1995), or, further back, Julia Cunningham's Dorp Dead (1965), it becomes more an exercise in analysis than a living, breathing story. Still, the tiger, "burning bright" with magnificent, feral presence, does make an arresting central image. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7636-0911-0
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2001
BOOK TO SCREEN
Fans of Cameron’s Huey and Julian stories (More Stories Huey Tells, 1997, etc.) are in for a treat as Gloria, their friend from those tales, gets a book of her own and graciously allows the two brothers to share it . In the first tale, Gloria makes a wonderful card for her mother, but the wind blows it away and it ends up in the cage of a cantankerous parrot. Thanks to Mr. Bates, Huey and Julian’s dad, the day is saved, as is the burgeoning friendship that Gloria and the boys have struck up with new neighbor Latisha in the story, “The Promise.” In another story, Gloria has to deal with a huge problem—fractions—and this time it’s her dad who helps her through it. Mr. Bates proves helpful again when the group trains an “obsessed” puppy, while Gloria’s mother is supportive when Gloria is unintentionally hurt by her three best friends. The stories are warm and funny, as Gloria, a spunky kid who gets into some strange predicaments, finds out that her friends and wise, loving adults are good to have around when trouble beckons. Great fun, with subtly placed, positive messages that never take center stage. (b&w illustrations) (Fiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: March 9, 2000
ISBN: 0-374-32670-3
Page Count: 93
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2000
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