Audiobook All-Time Favorites #2: Ghost

 If you're looking for a really great audiobook, the kind of read that makes you glad you chose to listen because the narration really adds so much to the story, it's time for my next audiobook all-time favorite: 

Ghost by Jason Reynolds, narrated by Guy Lockard. Simon & Schuster Audio, 2016. 3 hours 29 minutes. Sequels: Patina (narrated by Heather Alicia Simms), Sunny & Lu (both also narrated by Guy Lockard)

If you've read anything by Jason Reynolds, you know that he's a master of voice. His characters leap off the page and tell you their stories in completely believable voices. So he's a natural fit for audiobooks and this series is one of my favorites. Each volume in the Track series stands alone, focusing on one member of an urban track team, a group of kids with very little in common except their sport and their dedication to the team. 

In this first volume, Castle Crenshaw (or Ghost, as he wants to be called) knows he can run fast. He knows because when his dad came at him and his mother on one violent night, running was the only way to get away. Life hasn't been super kind to Ghost - the kids at school make fun of him because he's poor and he carries around the weight of his father's betrayal. When Ghost stumbles onto a local track team and decides to show them a thing or two (they think they can run?!), Coach takes him into the fold. Suddenly, Ghost starts to know what it's like to be part of something bigger than yourself, to have a strong male role model who really cares about him, to work at something and get better and feel proud. But to stay on the track team, Ghost is going to have to steer clear of what his mom calls "altercations", which means keeping his temper when the other kids are giving him a hard time. Could Ghost's bad decisions take away his track star dreams forever?

This series is sure to be a hit with young athletes, but I am far from an athlete and I found myself absolutely drawn in by the compelling characters. I loved learning their stories, particularly in the volumes narrated by Guy Lockard. Lockard reads with a vibrancy that really brings each character to life. Jason Reynolds and Guy Lockard have been friends for decades, so Lockard is a natural fit for these audiobooks. He knows these characters and knows their cadences and how they should be portrayed and it absolutely comes through in his work. I think Sunny is my very favorite of the series, but they're all excellent stories. 

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Let's Go to Taekwondo

Let's Go to Taekwondo: A Story About Persistence, Bravery, and Breaking Boards by Aram Kim. Ages 4-8. Holiday House, 2020. 40 pages. Review copy provided by my local library. 

Yoomi loves learning taekwondo with Master Cho at her dojang with her brothers and friends. She learns about the five tenets of taekwondo: courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control, and indomitable spirit. And she works hard to improve her skills. But when it comes time to test for her yellow belt, Yoomi must break a board with her hand. Try as she might, she cannot break that board. Soon, Yoomi doesn't want to go to taekwondo anymore. Will Yoomi find a way to persevere or will she give up? 

I love this sweet story about perseverance with it's wonderful intergenerational connection. Yoomi's grandmother is the one to take her to her taekwondo classes and when Yoomi thinks about quitting, her grandmother tells her that's okay. But just at that moment, Grandma feels like giving up on something, too. She's trying to call a friend in Korea over the computer and nothing she tries will work! Readers can see Grandma's growing frustration mirroring Yoomi's as they both try and fail to accomplish their goal. Finally, when Grandma's had enough, Yoomi steps in to encourage her grandmother and realizes that she'd better keep trying, too. This was a really nice, organic moment that teaches a lesson gently so that the story doesn't come across as didactic. 

This would be a great pick for kids who study martial arts or any kids who are struggling with learning or doing something challenging. It's also a story that will appeal to grandparents looking for stories to share with grandchildren. And although characters are loveable anthropomorphic animals here, this is an own-voices story, written and illustrated by a Korean American author/illustrator. This is the second book about Yoomi's family and you can read more about them in No Kimchi for Me (Holiday House, 2017). 

How to Solve a Problem: The Rise (And Falls) of a Rock-Climbing Champion

How to Solve a Problem: The Rise (And Falls) of a Rock-Climbing Champion by Ahima Shiraishi, illustrated by Yao Xiao. Grades K-4. Make Me a World, 2020. 40 pages. Review copy provided by my local library. 

Ashima Shiraishi knows about problems. Problems are what rock climbers call the boulders that they climb: each one is a problem to solve. Shiraishi is a world champion rock climber who was the first woman in the world to climb a V15 boulder problem (that is a very, very difficult climb). And in this picture book, Shiraishi takes a look at how she solves problems. While this book uses Shiraishi's boulder problems to detail her problem-solving steps, these steps translate to any kind of problem a person might face. 

She looks at the problem "There were many parts, and none of them looked easy." 

She maps out her steps. She gives it a try.... and she falls. But does she give up? Of course not! "Then, when I was ready, I looked at the problem again with the new information the fall had given me." 

This is an encouraging book that is wonderful to share with kids of all ages who might struggle with perseverance in the face of difficulty. It would make a great classroom read aloud to set the tone for your class. The text reinforces the importance of learning from your failures and getting up to try and try again. Of course Shiraishi did not become a world champion by getting everything perfectly right the first time. I love how she structures her falls as opportunities to learn and to approach a problem in a new way. 

Not only is this a great book about problem solving and perseverance to have on your shelves and to know about for your patrons, but it's also a story that celebrates women and Asian Americans in sports and the accomplishments of a young person. Ashima Shiraishi was born in 2001, so she wrote this book as a teenager and she won world championships in climbing as a teen, so this is definitely a story that young people will relate to. And I think it's got some nice words of wisdom for us all! 

Dragon Hoops

 

Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang. Grades 6 and up. First Second. March 2020. 448 pages. Reviewed from digital galley provided by publisher. Due out March 17 - preorder now and get this on your shelves in time for March Madness!

I live in basketball country. High school and college basketball is absolutely huge here in Southern Indiana. And I just read a book that I am for sure adding to my shelves because I know I will have an audience for it, and I think you will, too.

You know Gene Luen Yang from his Printz-winning American Born Chinese and his National-Book-Award-shortlisted Boxers and Saints and now he's back with a new book that's a rather unusual memoir of sorts. And it's a very unlikely book for him to have written.

What it's about:

Mr. Yang is not a fan of basketball, or of sports in general. He's a comics nerd, the kid who was always made fun of on the basketball court, a guy more at home at an artist's table than a stadium. But as he was searching for his next book idea, he kept hearing the students at the high school where he taught talking about their basketball team. So, he took a step across the street to the school's gym to check it out.

And so begins Mr. Yang's year of basketball. He follows a team of stellar players and a coach who's brought his team to the California State Championships five times without winning the championship. Could this be their year? With eight seniors on the team, it had better be.

My thoughts: 

This is a fantastic book that Yang's many fans will appreciate and it's sure to garner him new fans, as well. Part action-packed sports story, part character-driven portrait of this dedicated high school team (and their teachers), and part sports history, this is a graphic novel that has a little something for everyone.

Yang includes personal stories of all the teens on the team and why basketball matters in their lives. It's a very diverse group of California students who had many different paths to attending this private, Catholic high school, but they come together to make one cohesive team.

Although at its heart this is a sports story, Yang interperses the team's story with his own personal story of taking steps forward into the unknown. Throughout the book the theme of taking a small step that changes your life comes back again and again. You never know where a small step might lead. For Mr. Yang, his small step across the street to the school gym eventually led to his decision to quit teaching and move to writing and creating full time, a decision he wrestles with throughout the book.

While that part of the story may sound like a story only an adult audience would appreciate, Yang treats his teen subjects with such respect and honesty that this is truly a teen book with huge crossover potential. Sports fans will definitely appreciate this book, but there's a lot for the nerdy quiet kids who don't care about basketball, too.

Readalikes:

Press this into the hands of teens who enjoyed Attucks!: Oscar Robertson and the Basketball Team That Awakened a City by Philip Hoose (Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 2018). While Dragon Hoops is a graphic novel and Attucks! is prose nonfiction, both profile diverse elite basketball teams with plenty of play-by-play action mixed with a good dose of basketball history. 

Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian Football Team

Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian Football Team by Steve Sheinkin. Grades 5 and up. Roaring Brook Press, January 2017. 288 pages, Reviewed from egalley provided by publisher.

Booktalk:

Who here likes football? Watching football, playing football? 

Did you know that when football first started, long passes were illegal? The most popular kick for a field goal was to drop the ball on the ground and kick it on its bounce. 

Called "the team who invented football", the Carlisle Indians, team of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, brought football into the mainstream. Their open way of playing brought football alive for the fans in the stands and may have saved a dying college game.

Star of the Carlisle Indians was Jim Thorpe. He's considered one of the best American athletes ever. He scored almost half of the total Indians points during the seasons he was on the team. And the coach didn't even want to try him because he was so small. 

Thorpe wasn't only a star on the football field. He also played professional baseball and won gold medals for the decathlon and pentathlon in the 1912 Olympics. 

For anyone who likes sports, particularly football, this is a great read with plenty of play-by-play action. 

My thoughts:

Steve Sheinkin writing about Jim Thorpe? You had me at hello.

Sheinkin pays homage to football legend Jim Thorpe with his signature compulsively readable style and tons of archival photographs. It's obvious that Sheinkin is taking great care to write of indigenous nations with respect, always identifying the nations to which people belong. Beyond that, I don't have the expertise to evaluate Sheinkin's treatment of culture here. He condemns the use of boarding schools to "civilize" indigenous people and raises questions for teen readers to consider throughout the book (example: would anyone have dared to take away Thorpe's Olympic medals if he had been white?).

This is a must-read for sports fans - there is a ton of play-by-play football action and fans of the sport will be fascinated by how many modern-day conventions of the sport were started by the Carlisle team. But even readers who are not huge sports fans (read: me!) will be fascinated by this true story of a little-known American sports legend.

Last year, I listened to the audiobook of Joseph Bruchac's "novelized" biography, Jim Thorpe: Original All-American, which is written in first person. I loved that book, too, but I'm glad to have a stricter nonfiction look at Thorpe from such a well-regarded author. Undefeated is just as compelling a read.

Highly recommended; a must-purchase.

Readalikes:

Readers who are looking for compelling historical nonfiction with sports action may enjoy either the young reader's editions or the original adult editions (depending on age of the reader) of The Boys in the Boat* by Daniel James Brown or Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand. 

Readers who are interested in meeting more historical athletes might enjoy Babe Conquers the World: The Legendary Life of Babe Didrikson Zaharias by Rich Wallace, A Strong Right Arm: The Story of Mamie "Peanut" Johnson by Michelle Y. Green, or The Greatest: Muhammad Ali by Walter Dean Myers. 

Readers who are interested in more sports nonfiction might enjoy We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball by Kadir Nelson, Outcasts United: The Story of a Refugee Soccer Team That Changed a Town by Warren St. John, or A Whole New Game: The Story of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League by Sue Macy. 

And of course, readers looking for excellent nonfiction in general would do well to pick up Steve Sheinkin's other titles!

* Worth mentioning that the young reader's edition of this book (and possibly the original version? I listened to the audiobook, so I can't tell for sure) contains a problematic photo of the athletes "playing Indian" with feathers on their heads and no explanation for young readers. Be aware. 

Audiobook Review: Ghost

Ghost by Jason Reynolds, narrated by Guy Lockard. Grades 5-7. Atheneum, 2016. 3 hours, 29 minutes. (192 pages.) Audiobook provided by my local library.

Booktalk:

Castle Crenshaw calls himself Ghost and he knows he can run fast. Unfortunately, he knows this because of a terrible night when his dad got drunk and violent and running fast was the only way to get away. Life hasn't been super kind to Ghost - the kids at school make fun of him because he's poor, and he carries around the weight of his father's betrayal.
One day, Ghost stumbles onto a local track team practicing near his neighborhood and starts to watch. Those kids think they're so fast, but Ghost knows he can leave them in the dust. And when he shows off for those kids, Coach is watching him and invites him to join the track team.

Ghost has never done anything like that before. And he's never had a strong guy in his life to show him the ropes. Suddenly, Ghost is learning what it's like to be on a team, to have a Coach who really cares about him, to work at something and get better and feel proud. To stay on the track team, Ghost will have to steer clear of what his mom calls "altercations", which is not going to be easy. When kids start running their mouths and saying stuff about him, Ghost can't keep calm, he has to fight back. But he'll have to really watch it to keep doing what he loves. And then Ghost makes a decision. A bad decision. A decision that could cost him his track star dreams. Will Ghost lose the best thing that has ever happened to him?

If you like realistic stories, especially if you're into sports, pick up Ghost. 

My thoughts:

Oh man, you guys. THIS VOICE!!! Jason Reynolds is a master of voice and dialogue. His characters jump off the page with their realness. I could completely and totally believe that Ghost was a real kid who was sitting down and telling me the story of his life. If you have readers who enjoy strong, well-written voice (me, me, me!), push this book into their hands.

The narration of the audiobook absolutely heightens the story, too. Guy Lockard brings out every ounce of humor and tension in the story. His fully voiced performance did justice to the strong voices of the characters in the book. The words and voice of Coach, a taxi-driving curmudgeon with a heart of gold, are still stuck in my head, weeks after listening to this audiobook.

This book was a finalist for the National Book Award and I'm expecting to see some more shiny stickers on it, come awards season.

Readalikes/Listen-alikes:

After I finished this audiobook, I immediately picked up Jason Reynolds's and Guy Lockard's other middle grade audiobook out this year, As Brave as You, which is also really good. Again, I think audio is the way to go with this title and Guy Lockard gives a masterful, fully-voiced performance.

For readers who love Ghost's strong voice, I would suggest other books with strongly-voiced characters: The Crossover by Kwame Alexander or Three Times Lucky by Sheila Turnage,

For readers who like the storyline of a kid dealing with Circumstances in the city, I would suggest Kinda Like Brothers by Coe Booth or Ghetto Cowboy by G. Neri.

For readers looking for more sports stories, I would suggest The Crossover by Kwame Alexander (yes, again, I love this book!), Sasquatch in the Paint by Kareem Abdul-Jabar, or Izzy Barr, Running Star by Claudia Mills.

Tumbling

Tumbling by Caela Carter. Grades 7+. Viking. June, 2016. 432 pages. Review copy provided by publisher.

Booktalk:

There's the gymnast who hasn't played along with the Olympic coach's master plan. There's the gymnast who would rather be anywhere than at the Olympic trials. There's the gymnast who isn't eating anything. There's the gymnast who doesn't think she has a chance. There's the gymnast carrying a secret.

For these five girls, the next two days are a pivotal point in their lives. It's the Olympic trials, an intense last gymnastics meet that will decide the American Olympics team. Dreams will be realized. Dreams will be crushed. Mind games will be played. Secrets will be spilled. Friends will be betrayed. Decisions will be made.

And at the end of it, there will be an Olympic team. A handful of girls who will go on to compete for gold and glory.

This behind-the-scenes look at the Olympic trials is a great choice for anyone who's waiting eagerly for the Olympics to start back up in August.

My thoughts:

Couldn't. Put. This. Down.

I am definitely one of those people who can't wait for the Olympics in August, so this was right up my alley. I don't have the experience to know for sure, but the book seems very well researched, including lots of details of the minutiae of gymnastics life. A lengthy glossary includes lots of gymnastic terms.

Besides being a solid sports book, this is a great book for teens who enjoy the ~drama~ of it all. Any sport has psychological aspects to it. Combine that with a gaggle of teenage girls, all thirsty for a chance at their Olympic dreams, and you get quite the soap opera (in a good way, I mean).

The cast of narrators is diverse in a surface-level way (there's the African American, the Jewish girl, the half-Asian girl, the closeted lesbian), but the focus here is on the sport and the relationships of the characters to one another and to their own goals.

Readalikes:

For younger teens looking for more gymnastics this summer, try Gold Medal Summer by Donna Freitas (Arthur A. Levine, 2012). Older teens might enjoy gymnastics memoirs like Off Balance by Dominique Moceanu (Touchstone, 2012).

Readers who gravitate toward the drama between the girls might like Tiny Pretty Things by Sona Charaipotra and Dhonielle Clayton (HarperTeen, 2015).

Readers may also enjoy dance stories like Up to This Pointe by Jennifer Longo (Random, 2016) or Pointe by Brandy Colbert (Penguin, 2014).

Reading Wildly: Sports

So, we got snowed out for our February Reading Wildly meeting, which was discussing sports books. When we have to cancel our meeting, my first choice would be to reschedule it; I do think it's important to devote time to our readers' advisory discussions. However, because I have to schedule everyone on staff to be here and arrange for desk coverage, that is almost never feasible. Usually what we do is combine our RW meeting with our next department meeting or, like we did this time, combine our RW meetings and briefly discuss two genres. It's not ideal, but we have to be flexible to make it work!

Because we had so many books to share, I asked everyone to do a quick round of sports books and then we moved on to survival books. Today I'll round up our sports books.

This is a topic that seems to come up every year, I think because none of us in my department truly gravitate towards sports books on our own, so we make sure to include sports books when we're planning our reading year. This is definitely one of those genres that stretch us as readers, and it's a subject that LOTS of kids LOVE, so it's definitely important for us to be aware of key authors and titles to suggest.

Here's what we read for sports:

• Babe Conquers the World: The Legendary Life of Babe Didrikson Zaharias (biography: track & field, golf, basketball)
• Ballerina Dreams: From Orphan to Dancer by Michaela dePrince (ballet - maybe not a sport?)
• Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock (football)
• Fantasy Baseball by Alan Gratz (baseball)
• Gold Medal Summer by Donna Freitas (gymnastics)
• The Greatest: Muhammad Ali by Walter Dean Myers (biography: boxing)
• Planet Middle School by Nikki Grimes (basketball)
• Recruited (Surviving Southside) by Suzanne Weyn
• Samurai Shortstop by Alan Gratz (baseball)
• A Strong Right Arm: The Story of Mamie "Peanut" Johnson by Michelle Green (biography: baseball)

You can see our previous sports reading here:

• Sports 2014
• Sports 2015

The Way Home Looks Now

The Way Home Looks Now by Wendy Wan-Long Shang. Grades 4-7. Scholastic Press, April 2015. 272 pages. Reviewed from ARC provided by publisher.

Booktalk:

Peter Lee and his family have always loved baseball. One of Peter’s happiest memories is going with his family to watch the Little League team from Taiwan compete against the American team in the Little League World series. It was such a beautiful day and a great game, plus an important one as Chinese-American families all gathered to support Taiwan.

But that was Before.

Before Peter’s older brother Nelson died in a car accident and everything changed. Peter desperately misses his brother and he wonders if his family will ever be happy again. Now, Peter’s mom just sits on the couch and watches TV all day, not cooking, not talking, not doing anything… until one day when Peter mentions that day at the Little League championships and she actually sits up and has a conversation with him for the first time in forever.

Peter thinks he’s found the key to bringing his mom out of her slump: baseball. So he convinces his father to let him join a baseball team, aiming to get really good and invite his mom to come and watch. But when Peter’s father volunteers to coach his team, Peter begins to doubt his plan. His dad has never coached before. He has weird methods. Some of the other kids don't like having a Chinese-American coach. Is Peter's team doomed to fail? Will his family ever be normal again? 

My thoughts:

This is a great sports story, perfect for baseballs fans, while also including some really interesting historical detail and a nuanced family story.

Set in the 1970s, the story is based on events that happened in the author's childhood - the Chinese-American community's strong rally of support for the Taiwanese Little League team, the question of girls playing on sports teams, etc. Reading the author's note helped me appreciate the story on a deeper level, knowing that it was based on some actual events.

This is also a story that tackles the subject of a grieving family and acknowledges that grief does not just magically go away. It's a story of family members doing their best to support each other, even as each person in the family grieves in his or her own way. Peter doesn't really understand why his mom is so out of it, but it's something he has to accept. True fans don't give up if their team has a losing season; they continue to show their support and hope that things will get better. This simple message really connects baseball to the deeper themes of the novel.

And the beauty is that this nuanced family story is organically nestled in a great baseball story. The book includes some of the play-by-play action that sports fans will look for, as well as fun baseball facts and coaching techniques. Peter and his teammates challenge themselves to come up with the answers to seemingly impossible plays, like "How do you get a no-man triple play?" 

Readalikes: 

The Only Game by Mike Lupica - I read this earlier this spring and it shares a lot of the same themes: a boy mourning the loss of his older brother in an accident with lots of play-by-play baseball action. 

Nest by Esther Erlich - kids who more identified with Peter's family mourning and who are interested in the 1970s setting might like Nest, a story of a girl dealing with her mom's MS diagnosis.