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It’s tough to be 13; just ask Kevin Johnson, a star soccer player whose policeman father died in the line of duty when the boy was still young. Although Christy is not his girlfriend, Kevin has known her since preschool, and when she gets him involved in a small event that is technically illegal, well, what is a young man to do? Don’t forget that the statewide soccer tournament is looming, the girl’s father is irate, and the police are now involved. Kevin has a full plate to deal with.
Teaming up with a teenage writer, award-winning author Walter Dean Myers continues to tell it like it is with young people in the real world. Real problems, real situations and real dumb (and therefore completely believable) choices. Only the adults in this story are a bit hard to swallow. It’s as though a perfectly normal pair of kids are surrounded by grownups who always know exactly what to do, what to say and when.
There is no information about how much either author contributed to this work, but my guess is that it is mainly the work of the younger, less experienced writer. If so, he is quite talented at fashioning very believable modern-day kids, which is hard to find in standard YA literature. As long as he can get the older characters to act a little less omniscient, he has a good future.
Rated: None. Clean language, no serious situations.
