September 3, 2024 by Sourcebooks Young Readers
E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus
Milo has been a very successful young chess player, but during a big tournament at the Javits Center in New York City, he finds himself struggling to focus on the game... and care. He makes a move that essentially throws the game, but one that won't let his single mother know that he threw it. Losing ruins his chance at going to a summer camp for chess, but he hopes that he can go with his best friend to a different one, since he can't spend the summer with his grandmother. Gruth (Grandma Ruth, as he calls her) is his favorite person, but she's moved to Florida to be with her sister. His mother, who is a coder, informs him that he won't be going to camp, but the two of them will be spending the summer in Princeton with Nava, a friend from her mothers' group, and her daughter Roxie. It's a bit odd that Milo isn't told until Roxie, who is a "free range" child, shows up at his door in New York City, but it should be an indication of the kind of summer he will have! Milo isn't thrilled about the fact that Roxie and her mother are vegetarians and have a number of rescue cats, but the neighborhood is an intriguing one, and Roxie finds adventures like "spelunking" in one of the university libraries in the middle of the night! (With permission; they don't steal any books!) He's also not pleased with going to a "Little Explorers" summer camp run by Pat and Lou, who is there for community service. He and Roxie are much older than the other campers, so the two get roped into being Counselors in Training. They do demand lunch breaks, and during one of these, they meet two college students, Athena and Dell, who are playing a game called Go. Milo has been lying to his mother about playing chess on the computer; she's put a lot of time and money into his training, and while he no longer loves chess, he doesn't want to disappoint her. Milo becomes enthralled with Go, and he and Roxie do some deep research dives into the game. They ask Pat to try easier versions with the campers, and its a hit. Milo even makes peace with the cats, who can be rather comforting, and comes to realize that sometimes stepping away from the usual and embracing new experiences can be enjoyable.
Strengths: As adults, we forget that tweens are at the mercy of their parents' decisions. Milo controls little about his world; he misses Gruth, although the two text daily, he continues playing chess because his mother is so invested, and he has no say in the decision to decamp to Princeton for the summer to live with strangers... and their cats! How many adults would take this well? I did love the relationship with Gruth. The two play Battleship Online and communicate frequently, and I imagine there are a lot of children who have this kind of long-distance relationship with grandparents. I can also attest to the fact that cats, while they are generally quite evil, can be good companions, having spent a week with my daughter's cat last year. Nava and Milo's mother both chose to have children with the help of donors, so fathers never come into the picture at all, and I've only seen this represented a few times in middle grade literature (Robert's Nikki on the Line, Erskine's The Incredible Magic of Being, and Melleby's The Science of Being Angry). The summer camp is believable, and hanging out in Princeton was fun. I loved that Janowitz gave a specific, real address for the street where Roxie lived! Of course, the main draw of this book is the game of Go, and there's a lot of information on not only the history of this ancient game, but also the philosophy of how to play.
Weaknesses: I came to the conclusion while writing this that the thing that I personally hate the most in the entire world is GAMES. This made reading the description of the history of Go, along with the details of playing, a bit slow for me. There is certainly enough going on in the story that I was able to enjoy the humor and relationships in the book, but readers who DO like to play games will like this even more than I did.
What I really think: While there are plenty of middle grade books about chess (Giles' Not an Easy Win or Gerber's Focused for a start) and a growing number of escape room or puzzle room books (Reese's or Puzzleheart Currie's Mystery of Locked Rooms), there aren't a lot of books about any other games. There's Martin's new Wander Lost, which was an intriguing fantasy involving vintage board games, but the book this reminded me the most of was Anderson's One Last Shot (miniature golf). I did love this author's The Doughnut Fix and The Doughnut King, so it was great to see a new title by her!
Milo has been a very successful young chess player, but during a big tournament at the Javits Center in New York City, he finds himself struggling to focus on the game... and care. He makes a move that essentially throws the game, but one that won't let his single mother know that he threw it. Losing ruins his chance at going to a summer camp for chess, but he hopes that he can go with his best friend to a different one, since he can't spend the summer with his grandmother. Gruth (Grandma Ruth, as he calls her) is his favorite person, but she's moved to Florida to be with her sister. His mother, who is a coder, informs him that he won't be going to camp, but the two of them will be spending the summer in Princeton with Nava, a friend from her mothers' group, and her daughter Roxie. It's a bit odd that Milo isn't told until Roxie, who is a "free range" child, shows up at his door in New York City, but it should be an indication of the kind of summer he will have! Milo isn't thrilled about the fact that Roxie and her mother are vegetarians and have a number of rescue cats, but the neighborhood is an intriguing one, and Roxie finds adventures like "spelunking" in one of the university libraries in the middle of the night! (With permission; they don't steal any books!) He's also not pleased with going to a "Little Explorers" summer camp run by Pat and Lou, who is there for community service. He and Roxie are much older than the other campers, so the two get roped into being Counselors in Training. They do demand lunch breaks, and during one of these, they meet two college students, Athena and Dell, who are playing a game called Go. Milo has been lying to his mother about playing chess on the computer; she's put a lot of time and money into his training, and while he no longer loves chess, he doesn't want to disappoint her. Milo becomes enthralled with Go, and he and Roxie do some deep research dives into the game. They ask Pat to try easier versions with the campers, and its a hit. Milo even makes peace with the cats, who can be rather comforting, and comes to realize that sometimes stepping away from the usual and embracing new experiences can be enjoyable.
Strengths: As adults, we forget that tweens are at the mercy of their parents' decisions. Milo controls little about his world; he misses Gruth, although the two text daily, he continues playing chess because his mother is so invested, and he has no say in the decision to decamp to Princeton for the summer to live with strangers... and their cats! How many adults would take this well? I did love the relationship with Gruth. The two play Battleship Online and communicate frequently, and I imagine there are a lot of children who have this kind of long-distance relationship with grandparents. I can also attest to the fact that cats, while they are generally quite evil, can be good companions, having spent a week with my daughter's cat last year. Nava and Milo's mother both chose to have children with the help of donors, so fathers never come into the picture at all, and I've only seen this represented a few times in middle grade literature (Robert's Nikki on the Line, Erskine's The Incredible Magic of Being, and Melleby's The Science of Being Angry). The summer camp is believable, and hanging out in Princeton was fun. I loved that Janowitz gave a specific, real address for the street where Roxie lived! Of course, the main draw of this book is the game of Go, and there's a lot of information on not only the history of this ancient game, but also the philosophy of how to play.
Weaknesses: I came to the conclusion while writing this that the thing that I personally hate the most in the entire world is GAMES. This made reading the description of the history of Go, along with the details of playing, a bit slow for me. There is certainly enough going on in the story that I was able to enjoy the humor and relationships in the book, but readers who DO like to play games will like this even more than I did.
What I really think: While there are plenty of middle grade books about chess (Giles' Not an Easy Win or Gerber's Focused for a start) and a growing number of escape room or puzzle room books (Reese's or Puzzleheart Currie's Mystery of Locked Rooms), there aren't a lot of books about any other games. There's Martin's new Wander Lost, which was an intriguing fantasy involving vintage board games, but the book this reminded me the most of was Anderson's One Last Shot (miniature golf). I did love this author's The Doughnut Fix and The Doughnut King, so it was great to see a new title by her!
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September 17, 2024 by G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers
E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus
When May Li's best friend and chess team teammate makes a snide comment about her being good "for a girl", she decides not to have much to do with him. She still has her friend Becca, who is on the team just because the school doesn't have a cooking club. May Li feels a little awkward, since she DID win the Judit Polgar award at the tournament, and not only is going to be interviewed for Chessbase Magazine, but is one of the school's choices to be on a bulletin board celebrating the school's 100th anniversary. At the photo shoot for this, she connects with Mario, who is an excellent soccer player, and ends up going to one of his games. There's a lot of demands on May Li's time; she takes lesson with Mr. Wang at a chess academy, and wants to make her parents proud of her. She's still angry with Ralph, and determined that not only will she be on the team going to the national tournament, but also to be the team captain. When a match with Becca is the only thing standing between her and victory of Ralph, she thinks about asking Becca to throw the game, but doesn't. When Becca tries to do this anyway, May Li makes a move that ends in a draw. She and Ralph have to play an Armageddon match to figure out who will win.
This has a lot of details about chess, and I really enjoyed that May Li and Mario were able to be friendly to one another even though their interests were very different. This had strong traditional feminist themes that were quite refreshing; haven't seen a book with a lot of Girl Power in a while, and chess certainly hasn't always been kind to female players. Hand this to readers who enjoyed Gerber's Focused or Giles' Not An Easy Win.
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