Love of the game

Review by Booklist Review

New sixth-grader Jackson Kennedy finds the first few weeks of middle school hard. He is bullied by eighth-graders, flummoxed by his attempts to open his locker, and weighed down by homework. There's change at home, too: his divorced mom has moved the family in with her boyfriend, and his father is far away, serving in Afghanistan. Jackson is hoping to find some relief on the football field, but two of his friends are wavering about whether they will play, too. The cover's eye-catching image of a football player on the run signals a sports story, but readers will find that most of the novel deals with the familiar territory of a boy's sometimes comic, sometimes painful adjustment to middle school; football practices and game descriptions do appear extensively until the latter part of the book, though. Throughout, Coy effectively captures Jackson's mental state through a first-person narration that rings true, and many young readers will relate to all of Jackson's painful and humorous adjustments.--Morning, Tod. Copyright 2010 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by School Library Journal Review

Gr 3-6-Jackson's first day of middle school is rough. In a stereotypical beginning of underclassman woe, he is taken for both his lunch and his money when forced to sit in the back of the bus with the eighth graders. He endures the torment, looking forward to playing on the football team with his friends after school. It turns out that bullying is not the only problem that he and his friends will have to deal with. These sixth graders must persuade their soccer-playing chum's mother that football is safe, and Gig deals with his father being overseas in the war. Jackson is also coming to terms with the fact he and his mother will be moving in with her boyfriend and his daughters. The culminating experience of character growth occurs when he chooses to play defense because of his skill, even though his friends all play offense. The author tries to weave in meaningful messages about literacy through the "cool" librarian, but they often feel heavy-handed. Still, this realistic novel will attract kids who like a story told without any dressing up. Despite the title, actual sports action takes a backseat to a plot-driven story rich in contemporary social issues. When the author does get to describing a sports scene, however, it is rife with action and will draw readers back to the page.-Devin Burritt, Jackson Memorial Library, Tenants Harbor, ME (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Horn Book Review

Jackson relates the many changes middle school brings for him and friends Gig, Isaac, and Diego. Sixth grade begins with school-bus bullying and tons of homework; nonetheless, the friends are determined to make the football team. They do, but the sports action is only one strand in the larger story of social adjustment. Appealing characters and brief chapters will keep readers engaged. (c) Copyright 2012. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Middle-grade boys will welcome the latest installment of this popular sports series, this time featuring football.In the third entry in the 4 for 4 series, the group of youngsters readers met in Top of the Order (2009) and Eyes on the Goal (2010) are back, and this time their focus is the turbulent world of middle-school football. Now that they are sixth graders, Jackson Kennedy worries about all the things they have to get used to, from chaos on the school bus to challenging teachers and subjects in their classrooms: "We're not going to be stuck with one boring teacher." "No, now we're going to have lots of boring teachers," Gig says. Jackson and Gig have been best friends since kindergarten, and now they have no classes together, something particularly difficult as Gig is still having trouble coping with his father's deployment to Afghanistan. Jackson's and Diego's mothers are concerned about the dangers of football, potentially threatening their ability to play the game they love, and they almost lost their friend Isaac to another school. As with the others in the series, there is a nice balance between the sports action and the portrayal of young people navigating the difficulties of growing up both at home and at school.Realistic characters, believable dialogue and a genuine feel for the rhythms and issues of middle-schoolers make this a satisfying addition to a solid middle-grade set. (Fiction. 8-12)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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CHAPTER 1     Where on earth is the bus? I step out into the street and squint into the sun. I check my phone. 7:33. It's supposed to be here. Behind me two older girls with straight, black hair, one with purple nail polish and the other with blue, ignore me completely as they argue about whether somebody named Rex is hot. Where's the bus? You'd think they'd make sure it was on time on the first day of middle school. I've already got enough to worry about with lockers, schedules, and the awful things eighth graders are dreaming up to do to us. I check my phone again. 7:33. How can that be? It feels like ten minutes have passed. I smooth down my new gold Nike T-shirt. Dad tried to get me to wear the new jeans we bought last week, but I told him you don't want to overdo it on the first day of middle school. You can't look like you're trying too hard. 7:34. The bus is late. The first day is pressure enough without showing up after the bell. The bus driver should be fired. I hear a low rumbling. Coming around the corner is the orange box on wheels that means summer is officially over. I shove my phone in my backpack and listen to the two girls. They've finally found a subject they can agree on: Logan. "Stay away from him. He'll pretend to be nice but will stab you in the back." As the bus pulls up, I wish my best friend Gig was on it. We rode the same bus for six years to elementary school, but now we're on different routes. I never thought I'd admit it, but I could use some of his stupid jokes right now. The bus door opens and I freeze. All of a sudden I don't want to get on. My feet feel superglued to the sidewalk. "Move it." One of the girls pushes me in the back. As I climb the steps I'm shocked to see that the bus is already jam packed. Kids are squished together three to a seat, talking and laughing. "Find a seat." The bus driver, who's got bushy hair popping out of a baseball hat, points over his shoulder. He's playing country music that sounds like it's about a hundred years old. I move farther back and feel the eyes of every seventh and eighth grader sizing me up. The competing perfumes, colognes, and deodorant mingle together. Other kids must have been like me and kept putting it on. Halfway back my friend Isaac is mashed up against a window. "I didn't know you were on this bus." "Jackson?" He's squeezed in by two boys who take up the rest of the seat. "Save me a place tomorrow." "Sixers can't save seats." The boy on the aisle has peanut butter breath. He pushes me and I fall against a girl with glasses and try to regain my balance. Two girls with eye shadow so heavy they look like raccoons check their phones. I don't want to sit with girls, but I don't want to keep going back either. "Can I sit here?" I try to sound friendly. "No!" The girls don't even look up. "That's my seat." The girl with purple nail polish pushes past me. "We need everybody sitting down," the bus driver hollers. With every step back I feel like I'm being sucked into the eighth-grade black hole. The boys back here are bigger and tougher and some of them are swearing every other word. "Here's a seat," a boy wearing wraparound sunglasses calls from the rear. A blond kid with spiked hair sitting next to him laughs. In the last seat of the bus on the left side, a gigantic guy is sitting all by himself. He's so big he must play football. He's so big he could be the entire left side of an offensive line. "Can I sit down?" He doesn't answer. "Have a seat." The sunglasses kid shoves me against the huge guy who pushes me away. I get shoved back and forth between them like a Ping-Pong ball. Finally I turn my legs to the side and hold my hands out in front of me. "Sixer?" Sunglasses asks. "What?" I look to the bus driver, but he's not paying any attention. "Are you in sixth grade?" "Yeah." "The back is reserved for eighth graders." His voice is raspy and he looks a lot older, like maybe he flunked a couple of grades. "What do you have for rent?" "What?" "Sixers pay rent back here. What do you have for money?" "I don't have any money." I hold out my hands. "That's baaaaaaad." The way he stretches it out sounds worse. "What do you have for food?" The spike-haired kid leans over. "Just my lunch." "Hand it over," Sunglasses says. I take off my backpack and unzip it as the bus driver turns a corner and the big guy falls into me and almost knocks me off the seat. We're not picking anybody else up, so my stop must be the last one. "Hurry up," Spike Head commands. "I'm starving." I take out my lunch and Sunglasses swipes it out of my hands. He pulls out potato chips, Oreo cookies, and cheese and crackers. "What's this?" He makes a face as he pulls open my sandwich. "Tur ... tur ... turkey and sun-dried tomato." "Nasty." He throws it on the floor and stomps on it with his boot. "Bring better food tomorrow ... or else." He holds up the plastic bag of carrot and celery sticks. "Do I look like a rabbit?" "No." He tosses the bag at me as he and Spike Head shove cheese and crackers into their mouths. My stomach rumbles as the crackers crunch. "We want brownies, Rice Krispie bars, and Twinkies tomorrow," Spike Head says with food falling out of his mouth. "And rent money," Sunglasses adds. "Don't forget the money." *   *   * When the bus pulls up in front of the school, Isaac is waiting for me. "How bad was it back there?" He's wearing new black-and-red Nikes and an Under Armour shirt. "Terrible." The entrance to Longview Middle School towers over us. "Where you two losers been?" Gig rushes up and bumps into me. "Our bus was late." "Mine was right on time." "Where's Diego?" Isaac asks. "No clue," Gig says. "He doesn't ride the bus so I don't know how he's getting here." Some of the students can't wait to get in, but others like us stand around outside soaking up the final seconds of freedom. "I'm glad to have different teachers in middle school," Isaac says. I remember Mrs. Spanier from last year. "We're not going to get stuck with one boring teacher." "No, now we're going to have lots of boring teachers," Gig says. "I wish we could skip school and go straight to Echo Park for football." "Me, too." I twirl the strap on my backpack. I'd love to smash into somebody on the football field right now. "We're going to have a good team," Isaac says. "Diego's going to help us out." "Wait and see," Gig says. "What do you mean?" I ask. "He hasn't done anything yet in football," Gig says. "He needs to prove himself." When the bell rings, people push toward the entrance. I look around for Diego but can't find him. We're funneled to the door like cattle forced into a slaughterhouse. A spitball whizzes past my head. A sweaty kid elbows me and shoves me aside. I'm not even in the building yet, and I've got a bad feeling about middle school.   Copyright (c) 2011 by John Coy Excerpted from Love of the Game by John Coy All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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