Summer Reading Lists
Summer reading for Rye students
Heart of a champion by Carl Deuker
Baseball becomes a metaphor for life in Deuker's thought-provoking testimonial to friendship and filial love. Narrator Seth, who lost his father at age seven, becomes a baseball fanatic five years later, when he starts playing ball with Jimmy Winter and Jimmy's perfectionist father. But Mr. Winter is hardly perfect: an alcoholic, he abruptly moves out and stops seeing Jimmy, then months later shows up, drunk, at a ballgame. Jimmy subsequently moves away, but Seth has been so strongly influenced that he's even eligible for the honors program in high school. Seth joins junior varsity baseball and is thrilled when Jimmy moves back and also makes the team. They start attending weekly beer-drinking parties at the home of teammate Todd. To his despair, Seth gets left in J.V. while Jimmy and Todd become varsity stars, even though they're suspended once for drinking. Eventually Seth makes the varsity squad and, along with Todd, quits drinking. But even with athletic stardom beckoning, Jimmy doesn't sober up, and the consequences are tragic. Deuker ( On the Devil's Court ) writes grittily, with action worthy of the sports page. Yet the sensitive examination of the importance of a father--or lack of one--in a boy's life is where Deuker really hits a home run. Ages 12-up. Copyright 1993 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
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You are SO not invited to my bat mitzvah! by Fiona Rosenbloom
Starred Review. Through the voice of a stressed-out seventh grader, first novelist Rosenbloom sheds a humorous light on a Jewish girl's coming of age in this contemporary novel set in Westchester County, N.Y. Thirteen-year-old Stacy Friedman is looking forward to the "joyous occasion" of her upcoming bat mitzvah. However (as she confides to God) there are a few concerns she needs to address: namely, having to sing a portion of the Torah, having to dress up like an "American Girl doll" for her mother and having her rather conspicuous younger brother (who has "recently almost doubled in girth") attend her party. Besides being plagued with these anxieties, there's the matter of Stacy having a crush on Andy Goldfarb whom she catches making out with her best friend, Lydia. Stacy, feeling betrayed, uninvites Lydia (and a few other classmates who stand up for Lydia) to her bat mitzvah, and it begins to look like the "joyous occasion" may end up a humongous disaster. Rosenbloom portrays Stacy as convincingly prickly but also shows her tender side in some poignant moments with her brother and mother, making this near-teen a flesh-and-blood character readers will recognize. Culminating in a unique bat mitzvah speech, which is sure to make even shiksas smile, this snappy novel shows the author's keen understanding of adolescent social pressures and conveys universal truths about growing pains, friendship and young love. Ages 12-up. (Sept.) Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz
Readers will cheer for Alex Rider, the 14-year-old hero of British author Horowitz's spy thriller (the first in a projected series). When his guardian and uncle, Ian, is mysteriously killed, Alex discovers that his uncle was not the bank vice-president he purported to be, but rather a spy for the British government. Now the government wants Alex to take over his uncle's mission: investigating Sayle Enterprises, the makers of a revolutionary computer called Stormbreaker. The company's head plans to donate one to every secondary school in England, but his dealings with unfriendly countries and Ian Rider's murder have brought him under suspicion. Posing as a teenage computer whiz who's won a Stormbreaker promotional contest, Alex enters the factory and immediately finds clues from his uncle. Satirical names abound (e.g., Mr. Grin, Mr. Sayle's brutish butler, is so named for the scars he received from a circus knife-throwing act gone wrong) and the hard-boiled language is equally outrageous ("It was a soft gray night with a half-moon forming a perfect D in the sky. D for what, Alex wondered. Danger? Discovery? Or disaster?"). These exaggerations only add to the fun, as do the creative gadgets that Alex uses, including a metal-munching cream described as "Zit-Clean. For Healthier Skin." The ultimate mystery may be a bit of a letdown, but that won't stop readers from racing through Alex's adventures, from a high-speed bike chase to a death-defying dance with a Portuguese man-of-war. The audience will stay tuned for his next assignment, Point Blanc, due out spring 2002. Ages 10-up. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
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