732 minutesHome stretch. Nothing stopping me from reading and writing now (except exhaustion! and possibly dinner. When your husband takes the time to heat up a good meal, how can you refuse it?)
Taking Sides by Gary Soto. More character than plot driven. A Mexican- American boy struggles with his identity as he plays basketball for his new, rich, mostly white school against his former, poorer, mostly "brown" school. I think the action- filled basketball scenes might help keep the attention of more reluctant readers.
I was grateful for both the Spanish/English glossary in the back and my husband, who was on hand to translate the basketball lingo (providing diagrams where necessary).
This felt genuine. Romance was slow, hesitant and ambiguous (hey, it's middle school. In the early nineties).
Reminded me strongly of Alexie Sherman's "Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" in the New rich school vs. old poor school in basketball department. Sherman's protagonist, however, while recognizing the unbalanced abilities of the two teams, sides a little bit more with the new school, if for nothing else but the sake of his own progress and an escape from a slow, likely alcohol-induced, death on the rez. It helps that no one from the old school is booing Soto's protagonist (and that the coach is a jerk).
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