Offsides

January 1, 2005
Gr 8 Up -Tom Gray, Mohawk 11th grader and soccer player, was the star of his high school team in Tin River, NY. Now, however, having moved away after his father's death, he is not even on the soccer team at Southwind High School, despite his clearly superlative skills and Coach Dempsey's high-pressure invitation. Tom chooses not to play for the Warriors because they, and especially the coach, insist on keeping their stereotypical Indian mascot. Instead, he heads up a team of homeschooled, self-proclaimed geeks, coached by a Russian immigrant shopkeeper, that seems to be his salvation until Dempsey draws him into a no-win bet. Add some believable romantic tension between the teen and the shopkeeper's granddaughter and a little mystery about her secretive brother for an enjoyable sports story with characters and plot that extend well off the field. Some might argue that the ending is a bit too predictable, but sometimes fiction should give readers a happy ending. The author includes enough detail in the soccer sequences to keep sports fans hooked, but not so much that others will get tired of them. This is a much-needed contemporary Native American story that scores nearest to Joseph Bruchac's "TheWarriors" (Darby Creek, 2004) for slightly older readers." -Sean George, Memphis-Shelby County Public Library & Information Center, Memphis, TN"

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