By:
On:
In: Middle Grade Reviews, Realistic Fiction, Sports
With: 0 Comments

Set in both New York and Massachusetts and told in three parts, Chris Makes a Friend by Alex Gino explores several social and emotional impacts that young people encounter. Among these are the challenges of friendship making, the difficulties in dealing with parents who experience chronic pain, the struggles that occur between siblings, and the power of connection experiments. As this novel targeting middle grade readers opens, eleven-year-old Chris Rossi has just learned that she will be attending “Old People Summer Camp in Massachusetts,” her name for a forced vacation with her grandparents while her mother endures yet another surgery. Because Chris prefers alone timeRead More →

By:
On:
In: General Book Reviews, Middle Grade Reviews, Realistic Fiction, Sports
With: 0 Comments

With her debut graphic novel, On Guard!, Cassidy Wasserman creates a clever metaphor between fencing and life.  As the story unfolds, Grace Collins is beginning seventh grade at Marshall Middle School. To further complicate life, her parents have divorced, the custody agreement adds challenges, and her best friend has moved on to a new friend group, replacing Grace with Lana. Adrift, angry, and alone, Grace starts watching the eighth grade fencers during her lunch hour. Although she imagines herself armed with a sword, she considers herself unathletic and chooses to sit on the sidelines instead. However, when her father notices Grace’s withdrawn demeanor, he encouragesRead More →

By:
On:
In: Action & Adventure, General Book Reviews, Middle Grade Reviews, Sports
With: 0 Comments

Twelve-year-old Valeria Salomón loves fútbol, aka soccer. Because of her talent, her teammates have nicknamed her Magic. The protagonist in The Beautiful Game by Yamile Saied Méndez, Magic plays for a boys’ team, the Overlords until her period arrives and she gets kicked off the team. Dedicated to the sport she loves and not ready to give it up, Val approaches Coach Blume and asks for a place on her all-girls’ team, the Amazons. Although Val missed try-outs and the team roster is full, Coach Blume decides to “accommodate for exceptional circumstances” (144). As Val tries to find a place in her new sisterhood, sheRead More →

By:
On:
In: General Book Reviews, Historical Fiction, Middle Grade Reviews, Multicultural, Sports
With: 0 Comments

With allusions to people like Mary Bethune, Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, Jessie Redmon Fauset, James Weldon Johnson, and Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Kwame Alexander commemorates Black History with his latest book: Black Star. But this novel in verse for middle grade readers goes beyond that preservation to tell the story of Charlene (aka Charley) Cuffey. The only thing Charley enjoys more than listening to her Nana Kofi tell stories about courageous ancestors and epic journeys is playing baseball with Willie Green and Henry Jones. With Grandpa’s inspiration, it’s impossible for Charley not to dream big. Charley’s mother, on the other hand, admonishes her asthmatic daughter for “getting allRead More →

By:
On:
In: General Book Reviews, Historical Fiction, Middle Grade Reviews, Multicultural, Realistic Fiction, Sports
With: 0 Comments

In her novel Kareem Between, Shifa Saltagi Safadi shares a story about the experiences of seventh grader Kareem, who loves football and dreams of being the first Syrian American NFL player. Seeing his name on an American jersey would spell perfection for him, but first he has to earn a position on the middle school team. Set in Indiana from 2016-2017, Kareem feels invisible since he doesn’t make the football roster and his best friend Adam has moved away. To find comfort, Kareem escapes to the library where the smell of paper and ink and books surrounds him. A lover of words, Kareem uses NFLRead More →

By:
On:
In: Graphic Novels, Middle Grade Reviews, Sports
With: 0 Comments

With Tryouts, Sarah Sax writes and illustrates a graphic novel for middle school readers about the power of teamwork, self-advocacy, and voice. As a young athlete, Alexandra Olsen (aka Al) has played baseball for a rec league, but the baseball team at her middle school is for boys only. With the help of her friends Milo and Viv, Al not only discovers that “gender-inclusive teams have led the way in Brinkley sports history” (58) but that Title IX says she has to be allowed an equal chance to play if there is no equivalent girls’ team. Hoping for a fair shot to play, Al triesRead More →

By:
On:
In: General Book Reviews, Middle Grade Reviews, Realistic Fiction, Sports
With: 0 Comments

Written by Jessixa Bagley and illustrated by Aaron Bagley, Duel is a graphic novel about family relationships as much as it is about fencing. With creative word play and pictures, the pair tell the story of Lucy and Georgia (Gigi) Jones whose passion is fencing, a passion developed by their father and passed on to his two daughters. When Dad unexpectedly dies, the girls and their mother forget how to be a family, and soon, they are in turmoil. Feeling inadequate and unsure of themselves, the two tweens take out their frustrations on one another. Pushed to her limits, Lucy challenges her sister to aRead More →

By:
On:
In: Action & Adventure, General Book Reviews, Middle Grade Reviews, Realistic Fiction, Sports
With: 0 Comments

Set in Minnesota, Just Keep Walking is a middle grade novel written in part to encourage resilience and perseverance in tweens. Erin Soderberg Downing creates twelve-year-old Josephine Conlan, aka Jo, to carry her message about not giving up in the face of adversity and challenge. Jo’s older brother, Jake, is in college now, and her dad side-stepped into a new family despite his promise to take his daughter on the Superior Hiking Trail the summer of her seventh grade year.  With all of her alone time, Jo experiences “too many uncomfortable silences. Too much time to think about the way things used to be. TooRead More →

By:
On:
In: Action & Adventure, General Book Reviews, Middle Grade Reviews, Realistic Fiction, Sports
With: 0 Comments

Set in Colorado, Backcountry by Jenny Goebel tells the story of thirteen-year-old Emily Walker. Daughter of a mom with grit and determination who tells her to play it safe and an athletic dad who tells her to go for it, Em is a lead attacker for the Impalers’ volleyball team. Strong, adventurous, and Identifying as an athlete, Em feels like she has to compete with Dad’s real estate clients for attention. Because a bad appraisal or inspection often takes precedence over Emily and her mother, Emily believes that her dad only pays attention to her life when she is winning tournaments and trophies. When EmilyRead More →