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| Image: LBYR |
Middle Grade Monday features Nikki on the Line by Barbara Carroll Roberts. When you're a big fish in a small pond, it can be a rude awakening when you move to a bigger pond. Thirteen-year-old Nikki is a basketball star in her rec program and has high hopes to play basketball in high school and college. That means playing elite ball, which is a financial stretch for her single-parent mom. She makes a deal with her mother. She will babysit her younger brother every day so that her mom can save on after-school care costs.
Then she goes to tryouts, where she finds that all the girls are taller, faster and better than she. But as a lefty, she has skills to offer and she has hustle. She makes the team along with her BFF. Soon though, the stress of ultra-competitive play, caring for her brother, keeping up her grades and trying not to be jealous of her bff's freedom, take its toll. Where she used to find joy, she now finds pressure and doubt.
Nikki's first-person narrative is authentic, engaging and winning. Her family is rather unique in that she and her brother were conceived via sperm donation and neither knows a thing about their donor dads. Her mother is a tad clueless about sports in general and basketball in particular but supportive and realistic.
The details about games, practices and bball strategy will be welcome to fans of the sport; but not off-putting to non-fans. There's a really positive family/ friend story going on as well.
Nikki on the Line was the author's debut. I am really looking forward to what's next and wouldn't mind if it was another sports book for sporty readers, especially sporty girl readers.
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