Rookie of the Year

April 15, 2016
Following series opener A Whole New Ballgame (2015), this second installment of the Rip and Red series finds the eponymous fifth-graders feeling pretty good about the year...until a new girl turns their world upside down.A diverse cast of characters highlights this good-natured, high-spirited slice of life at Reese Jones Elementary School. Narrator Mason Irving, nicknamed Rip, is an African-American student whose mother is a principal at another school. Blake Daniels, nicknamed Red for his hair, is on the autism spectrum, Avery is in a wheelchair, and their new teacher, Mr. Acevedo, has family in the Dominican Republic. Mr. Acevedo's class is a student's dream--lots of breaks in the school day, few tests, and not much in the way of worksheets. Enter Takara Eid, called Tiki by her friends, with an Egyptian father and a forceful presence. Tiki turns out to be quite the basketball player, and she leads a protest against the terrible food in the cafeteria. Her aggressive personality forces everyone to rethink their places in the elementary school universe, and everyone is changed. Even Red makes satisfying emotional progress and becomes something of a hero in the end. Bildner, a former teacher, casts an affectionate eye on school life and creates likable characters in realistic school situations, managing to make characters unique within their school group.An engaging, feel-good novel about elementary school life. (Fiction. 8-12)

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May 1, 2016

Gr 4-6-In this sequel, readers return to fifth grade with Red (a red-haired boy on the autism spectrum) and his best friend Rip (an African American boy with dreadlocks) and their friends and classmates. Red and Rip continue to love and play basketball and are on the team coached by their teacher Mr. Acevedo. Those new to the series will get enough details and will be completely engaged in the shot-by-shot descriptions of basketball games. Added to the class is a new student, Takara (Tiki). Tiki is that student who loves to be involved in everything. One of her best quirks is inventing new words. Tiki is also an excellent basketball player. Rip has a run-in with Coach Acevedo when he puts Tiki into the first team out each game and leaves Rip for the second. Rip is hurt and angry, but only time and experience on the basketball court will bring Rip to an understanding. The secondary part of the plot is the plan, by the class, to get rid of the new lunch ladies and bring back the Lunch Bunch and their better meals. It includes mounting a GoPro camera on the back of classmate Avery's wheelchair. As in the first title, there are no surprises, but that doesn't prevent this from being a great read.

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