Guy Friday-- Playing With the Boys

No joke. Yesterday I had a group of boys who all checked out "pink" books because Charlie Joe Jackson's Guide to Not Reading suggested they should read about girls! The Greenwald title has been getting heavy circulation here!

Tigelaar, Liz. Playing with the Boys. (Pretty Tough #2)
Lucy, still recovering from the death of her mother, moves from Ohio to California with her father. Desperate to fit in and make friends, she tries out for the soccer team, but when she doesn't make it, the coach suggests that she try out for the football team as placekicker. She beats out everyone, including her new friend Benji, and is cautiously excited about it. She thinks the quarterback, Ryan, is cute, and is glad to be asked to parties by the cheerleaders. The down sides include having to lie to her father that she is a cheerleader, and putting up with the hazing from the boys, who are not at all happy to have a girl on the team. This is the sequel to Pretty Tough, which features Charlie, who befriends Lucy.
Strengths: Very much enjoyed these portraits of strong girls interested in sports. I thought the treatment was realistic and balanced. Sad that over 20 years after Dygard's Forward Pass, girls are still having trouble being on football teams. If we have great young women like Brianna Amat kicking winning goals AND being Homecoming queen, I think it's time that boys realize that girls can play football, too.
Weaknesses: The author is now apparently writing for the television show Once Upon a Time, so we might not see more by this author; Pretty Tough #3 and #4 are written by Keri Mikulski.

I've not been finding many good books for boys lately. *Sigh*. Warning about James Proimos' 12 things to do before you crash and burn : gratuitous f-bombs in many places. This is especially annoying, as Proimos' previous work is for much younger ages, and the book itself is a tiny little volume. It is not clever enough to sustain the obscenities.

Also checked out Patricia Miles' The Gods in Winter, hoping that there would be enough mythology in it for my readers in Riordan withdrawl, but the 1978 title has that odd, English style where I wondered if anything would ever happen. Just not going to work.

I had great fun with Frank Decaro's The Dead Celebrity Cookbook, but it would have been better if the descriptions of the actors included pictures of them, as well as the source of the recipes, which I imagine appeared in other cookbooks. Not appropriate or of interest for middle school students, but fun for me!

Hardcourt Comeback is out!

Bowen, Fred. Hardcourt Comeback.
This is the book from Peachtree Publishers that has Blendon's own Mr. McMillan in it (page 26), as a teacher running a history bee at school, no less! The story concerns Brett, who is a star basketball player and all around winner-- until he messes up a shot in a game and starts to have problems with school. He even loses confidence on a rock climbing wall, and is worried that he won't do well at the bee. Not to worry, though-- there is a lot more basketball action than worry, and Brett manages to work through his crises and get back on top of his game. The history Bowen brings in to this title is the "Fab Five" in 1993. I like these titles even more than Matt Christopher's.

Klavan, Andrew. The Last Thing I Remember.
Charlie wakes up in a room strapped to a chair, obviously beaten and bruised. How did he get there? Flashing back to the last thing he remembers, he goes through an ordinary day of school but always comes back to the fact that he is being followed and tortured and he doesn't know why. The facts slowly emerge in between Charlie's escapes, and it turns out that the ordinary day was over a year in the past, and he's escaped from jail where he was sentenced for killing his best friend! We don't find out what exactly happened because this is the first book in the Homelanders trilogy(The Long Way Home came out in February). I was really impressed with this one. A lot of nonstop action, but with intriguing clues. This had an older feel to it-- fans of Morgenroth's Jude and Harazin's Blood Brothers will like this.

Jones, Carrie. Captivate. (**SPOILER ALERT**)
This sequel to Need finds Zara still in love with the were Nick, and still fighting an assortment of evil pixies, including her father, the pixie king. To complicate matters, there is another pixie king following her around, and she tends to turn blue when he is in the vicinity. My daughter and I adored the first book but were disappointed by the "Bella Effect" in this installment. Zara luuuurrrrves Nick, and when he is killed and taken to Valhalla, she is distraught and has to decide whether to turn pixie in order to save him. WILL this save him? Will he love her once she is blue and has pointy teeth? Can she kiss the pixie king without being untrue to Nick? I still liked the story, and will avidly read the sequel, but Zara is a more appealing character when she is stronger and does not whine quite so much. Still, I bought two copies of each!

Walker, Kristin. A Match Made in High School.
Because of the high rate of divorce, Fiona's high school is instituting a year-long marriage course, during which seniors are paired up and given tasks that include managing money and getting along. Unfortunately, Fiona isn't paired with the boy of her dreams, but rather the obnoxious jerk Todd, who is also the love interest of Fiona's nemesis. The two fight and pull pranks on each other, and most of the students don't take the course nearly as seriously as the principal or guidance counselor. I found this book profoundly embarrassing to read, because it was so similar to my own 8th grade novel, although mine was more computer dating. This is a light, fun romp, and students will be much more interested in it than I was.

Yoo, David. Stop me if you've heard this one before.
Mitali Perkins recently posted a list of novels with Asian male protagonists, so I've been working my way through those. Like Yoo's Girls for Breakfast, this strikes me as more of a high school title, not only because of the language but because of the contemplative nature of the story. From the publisher: "Despite his nonexistent social standing at Bern High School, Albert spends the summer working with his crush, Mia--the popular ex-girlfriend of Ryan Stackhouse--but as soon as Albert makes headway in his relationship with Mia, Ryan is diagnosed with cancer and pulls Mia, and her attention, away." The only book I can add that is not on Ms. Perkin's list is Sherry Garland's Shadow of the Dragon (1993).