MMGM- Wild Wave

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Unleashing Readers

Philbrick, Rodman. Wild Wave (Wild Adventures #3)
August 6, 2024 by Scholastic Press
E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus

Nick Chase, who struggles in school, is spending his Saturday at the Cape Courage, New Jersey shore on a Friends of the Wild Tour so that he can put together a podcast for school. The docent is a girl his age, Jess, who wants to be a big animal vet when she grows up. The tour has just covered some of the rescue animals, like bobcats, that are being rehabilitated when the animals become extremely agitated and all of the water empties out of the bay. Jess and Nick know this is a bad sign and run for higher ground as quickly as they can. They get a decent distance away, but when they see water coming for them, they manage to get hold of an uprooted tree, on which one of the bobcats is also riding! They travel further from shore across the ruined pines trees, but get sucked back towards the shore as the water recedes. It starts to rain, and they assess their supplies and injuries. Nick's mother was at the store, but his father was out on the Finn Chaser, his fishing boat. Jess' mom and stepfather were both at their house, which is on higher ground, and the kids hope that their parents are all alive. As they are trying to figure out where to go, they hear an air horn and find a small boat. On it is Mrs. Bumper, their science teacher who is nearing retirement, and her husband Bill, a popular soccer coach. Mrs. Bumper tells them that the ruined pine forest is a danger because of the threat of fire, but Bill has sprained his ankle, so they can't leave. Because Mrs. Bumper is diabetic, she wants to send Jess and Nick back to the town to get help. To get their GPS location, they have to get high enough to catch a signal, and it's a harrowing experience as both Bill and Nick, who is afraid of heights, try to climb trees. Once they have the location, the couple get the kids supplied with food and equipment and send them on their way. Nick slides into a sinkhole, but Jess saves him with rope. There's a timber snake that is a bit of a threat, but it's eaten by the bobcat that is following them, hoping that humans will lead it to food. They thwart an army of rats by distracting them with a peanut butter sandwich, and deal with aftershocks, rain, and blocked paths. When they finally make it near to the town, they find the abandoned Finn Chaser, and encounter looters who are trying to claim it and try to lock the kids in the cabin. Luckily, their bobcat companion attacks the looters, and Jess and Nick are able to get help from the National Guard. The town suffered devastating losses, with 300 people dying, but all of the parents are okay, with Nick's mother being gravely injured but being well on the road to recovery a year later.
Strengths: Like the other (unrelated) books in this series, Wildfire and Wild River, this is an excellent and exciting outdoor survival adventure. There is plenty of good information about survival techniques, and I now want to have a survival backpack firmly attached to me at all time. You just never know. Jess and Nick are different people, but work well together as they face daunting challenges. The Bumpers (who must be my age!) are great characters; upbeat, prepared, comforting, and resilient. They add a level of comfort to an otherwise bleak and scary book. There's plenty of action and suspense, as well as a happy ending. This is a perfect lenghth and will be very popular with my students.
Weaknesses: There is a nice note at the end of the book about tsunamis, but I would have liked to see more information about whether a tsunami has ever hit New Jersey. Young readers will think that this book is like Tarshis' I Survived series and based on real events, but I suspect it is not. 

What I really think: Outdoor survival books continue to be popular in my library; I even dusted off both copies of George's 1959 My Side of the Mountain and checked them out recently! Philbrick's The Big Dark has a dystopian feel to it, but I love this whole series of "Wild" adventures. This is a must purchase for elementary and middle school libraries where Johnson's Survival Diaries  or other outdoor survival books are popular.

 

Buckley, James Jr., Labrecque, Ellen, and Walthall, Steffi (illustrator)
Fearless Firsts: Athletes Who Changed the Game: 50+ Athletes Who Overcame the Odds
August 6, 2024 by Sourcebooks Explore
Copy provided by the publisher

While there are a lot of collective sports biographies, like Sourcebooks 100 Athletes Who Shaped Sports, and 100 Baseball Legends, Allen's Girls Race!, 

and Stabler's Kid Athletes, I haven't seen one that focused on athletes from a wide variety of backgrounds and sports that were firsts. This is a great idea, because it allows for a lot of inclusion, but also is a reminded of how recently some of these athletes were "first", because the playing field is still not even. 

There were some athletes with whom I was familiar, like tennis player Althea Gibson, athletic polymath Babe Didrickson Zaharias, and baseball player Toni Stone (who is the subject of the fantastic new picture book by Karen L. Swanson, Swinging into History: Toni Stone: Big-League Baseball's First Woman Player, this covered some that I hadn't heard of. I'd heard of Olympic swimmer Sammy Lee, for example, but not his friend Vicki Manolo Draves. Since I don't follow car racing, I didn't realize how groundbreaking Indy 500 driver Janet Guthrie or drag racer Shirley Muldowney were. I should have known about Marla Runyon, the first legally blind Olympic runner, and now might pick up her book No Finish Line. That's the reason I love to see books like this; my students and I might not be interested in every single person, but there's always one or two entries that encourage us to get more information. 

Each athlete is given a two page spread, with a brief biography and career overview on the right. It's helpful that the entry starts with the person's name, sport, and years. The entries are arranged alphabetically by last name, which is fine, but I always enjoy seeing these sorts of books about pioneers arranged chronologically. On the left, there is a great portrait with lots of details about the sport or person's background. There are also some articles that are not biographies, but add information about the state of sports in general, like a good discussion about Title IX. 

There is a colorful timeline in the back, with the athletes arranged in chronological order, as well as an alphabetical list of the sports included, with the pages where the athletes can be found. I loved the list of other books to read, which includes one of my favorites, Karen Blumenthal's Let Me Play: The Story of Title IX: The Law that Changed the Future of Girls. I highly recommend picking up the revised 2022 edition instead of the original 2005 one, even though I liked the original cover better!

Books about sports of any kind are always in demand in my library for pleasure reading, and this has the added appeal of featuring pioneers from a variety of backgrounds, making it useful for biographical presentations as well and a gold medal winner of a middle grade nonfiction title!