Lupe Wong Won't Dance by Donna Barba Higuera

 Good Gravy!  Lupe's school is having a square dancing unit!  Yuck!  She will do anything she can to get rid of it, BUT she has to make an A in every class to meet her hero, pitcher Fu Li Hernandez.  She wants to be a player in the MBL one day, and he is Chinese/ Mexican like her, so she looks up to him.  Her uncle has said he will introduce her to him this summer as long as she makes all A's.  Will square dancing keep her from her goal?  The lengths she goes to is entertaining, as well as eye opening.

Thoroughly enjoyed this book, very entertaining and also has some good lessons about acceptance and learning to get along with others.  Highly recommend for girls and boys.

Rivals by Tommy Greenwald

The whole book is written in a flashback along with different formats (newspaper, blog, interviews, etc), and this book tells the story of two schools from the same town...Walthorne North Middle and Walthorne South Middle.  Both teams have competitive captains of their basketball teams, but the question is what lengths are they willing to go to win?  As reporter Alfie Jenks digs into the two rivals, she brings up somethings that  are not exactly on the up and up.

This is probably a great book for middle guys, just wasn't my thing.  It is also from the author of the popular Game Changer, so I'm probably in the minority. :)

Becoming Muhammad Ali by James Patterson and Kwame Alexander

 Cassius Clay's story is told through free verse by himself and in prose by his best friend Lucky.  It starts with a group of family and friends waiting on Cassius' call from him competing for the Golden Gloves in Chicago.  After the phone call, we flashback to his growing up and learn about his family, friends, struggles with school and how he got into boxing.  

I was sad, because I LOVE both authors, but I just wasn't super impressed with this book.  I feel like I needed more story and details of his life.  I liked the illustrations and I liked the relatability of his life growing up and the the historical aspect of being black in the USA during his childhood years.  Overall, I'll recommend to boys who are into sports, and anyone who is into history.  

Before the Ever After by Jacqueline Woodson

 Disclaimer:  I listened to the audiobook.

Told in verse, this book had me hooked.  At first it was upbeat.  ZJ's dad is a professional football player in NFL as a tight-end.  ZJ has 3 friends who he hangs out with and his dad knows and plays around with.  As the book progresses those friends help him as his dad starts to lose his memory and changes and ZJ feels like he is not really his dad anymore.  The doctors can't really determine what is wrong with him, but he has had a LOT of concussions.  As ZJ goes through "loosing" his dad the book got a lot more serious and sad, but it ends in a good place.  

Will recommend to my boys - with it being a quick read and about football it will pull them in and also touch on family and relationships.  

Carey Price: How a First Nations kid became a superstar goaltender by Catherine Rondina

Carey Price grew up in Anahim Lake British Columbia playing hockey on a frozen river in his back yard.  His parents took him to the closest town (3 hours away) to join a hockey league and from there he moved to Pasco, Washinton to live with a family and play for an amateur league.  

This book tells the story from his humble beginnings up to the Olympics and the NHL.  Has a table of contents, glossary, index and highlights from his life.  Black and white photography.  

Ghost by Jason Reynolds

Ghost 


World Records...

Sunflower seeds...

Running...


Castle Cranshaw AKA Ghost loves learning world records and he also can run...FAST. He sees a group of people running at a track and decides to run, knowing he can run faster than the fastest. He doesn’t have great technique, but he can run. The coach begins training him and helping him become a better runner, and as he does, Ghost has to face some of his past problems, like his dad threatening him and his mom when he was younger, stealing shoes, skipping school and getting in a fight.

This is the first book of a series of books about kids who run...great book.  

Reynolds, Jason. Ghost. Atheneum Books For Young Readers, 2017.