I’ve seen this one described as being told in “verse.” I’d say, super short sentences. From Tweets to text messages to … super short sentences.
It’s designed to capture reluctant readers, what educators call a hi-lo: high reader interest (football injury) at a low reading level. Every genre needs these, because we need to reach all the kiddos out there, find something they can connect with and want to read.
This may just be that.
It starts with 13-year-old Edward Youngblood’s admission to the hospital. Breaking a cardinal rule of middle grade storytelling, you don’t see it happen. It’s not shown. You’re told it on his hospital admission form. Because he can’t talk for himself, not yet. He’s unconscious in a hospital bed, trying to make sense of the bits and bobs he does note, as he floats to consciousness after taking a horrific hit in a football practice.
As the reader progresses, you learn Edward, while a likeable kid, for the most part, didn’t always make great choices. He succumbed to team pressure, like all the other players, and may have actually done something that precipitated the hit he took from another player.
Which isn’t to say, the other player is right in what he did, either.
The sad fact is, no one’s right here, and this book graphically shows this. Often, by telling. And it works.
No one wins from these kids’ and parents’ actions. Any of them.
What’s left are pieces to pick up from lives that are irreparably shattered.
This is the second sports-related TBI (traumatic brain injury) middle grade story I’ve read this year (Ellen Hopkins’ What About Will was the other, back in April), and I’m glad it’s finally getting woven into sports stories.
Ok, so I loved this story for two reasons: it's a story within a story, and it's about as accurate a depiction of Alzheimer's (albeit the athlete concussion caused kind) I've seen in lower YA lit to date.
Ostensibly, the story is about the MC – Caleb Springer, 14yo son of NFL 7-year star, Sam Springer, aka "Dinger."
Now, to get "dinged" in football is to get a concussion, but not one bad enough to actually knock a player out of the game. They often recover and are back on their feet within seconds. The damage, however, is not as fleeting.
Dings, or repeated concussions, are now known to cause a form of early-onset Alzheimer's or dementia. And in the case of NFL football players (and younger players, too, potentially many more we never hear about because they never achieve fame and fortune), this can set in in their 40s.
Caleb is "dinged" in the opening of the book, knocked hard and he can't remember what happened, or how he got to the where he is, but he stays in the game and leads the team to a win. He's an up-and-coming quarterback star, his father's pride and joy, the only freshman starting on the varsity team, already being courted by his state university football team coach.
But then his dad starts acting… downright weird.
And this depiction really struck home, because it mirrored almost exactly my mother's 20-year decline into the depths of Alzheimer's.
All the actions described in the story – the angry, sudden outbursts over aggravations or obstacles that previously would've been dealt with in a totally different manner – rang true.
And it's a vital portrayal of dementia, Alzheimer's (which can still only be diagnosed post-mortem – that's after death, folks, after the brain has been excised and weighed and studied under a microscope) that is too often mis-characterized in middle grade and young adult literature. Far too often Alzheimer's is shown as a gentle fading of the person into unthreatening nothingness, and that's not what happens for many, many dementia sufferers, nor does it show what this does to their families.
The decline can be a violent process, one that's embarrassing and heart-breaking at the same time, and potentially dangerous to caregivers.
In Caleb's father's case, his father's in terrific physical shape, stronger and faster than most men, so when he bangs the table in anger or lunges at an obnoxious fan in a restaurant, the potential danger is *real.* And real frightening, in a way that you only really recognize if you've been through this agonizing process.
As Caleb takes the team to the championship game, he struggles with watching his father's decline and learning about the risks of repeated concussions. On the eve of the big game, his father takes off. Disappears. And as the police tell Caleb's mom, there's really nothing they can do when an adult with early-onset dementia wanders off.
They're presumed to be adults in the eyes of the law, capable of making their own decisions – except those closest to them know, they're not.
In the end, the story is as much Caleb's father's story, as it is Caleb's. His father recognizes, belatedly, what he must do – protect his son from what he's experiencing. And there's only one way to do that. But in his dementia, concussion-riddled brain, the way he expresses it is… well, I won't ruin it. Just know, that felt totally spot-on, too.
In the end, we want to believe that who we are is set, not something subject to change. When in fact we are only the sum of our brain's chemistry, and if you mess with that too many times, you struggle to hold onto …yourself.
Pull up a box of tissues. This one hits in the gut, and it hits hard.
I can't say enjoy, but please do read and as the author urges, think about the game and what we expect of its players.
I read and loved the first book, Benchwarmers, so it was fun and easy to fall right back into the POVs of best friends Andi and Jeff -- but this time, for the middle school girls' and boys' basketball teams.
Andi's excited to try out for the 6th grade girls' basketball team. For one thing, the middle school has one. That's a step up from soccer, which in 6th grade only offered "field hockey" to girls! But being a trailblazer on the boys' soccer team has earned Andi the reputation -- before she ever meets her new basketball coach -- of being a media hound.
Which, to be fair, for a 6th grader, she kinda was.
But this time, her coach is blatantly racist and outright refuses to play Andi and her friends, three other girls of color. They are benchwarmers, game after game.
Jeff, on the other hand, is in a comfy position of having a boys' basketball coach he knows and likes. And he's good at his position, super good. But he still has to deal with the bully -- Arlow -- the same kid who tried his darnedest to drum Andi off the soccer team and perpetuated a climate of misogyny, instead of inclusiveness.
So why is coach starting Arlow on point instead of Jeff, routinely? Jeff guards against getting a bad attitude about it, but his coach's motives are a total mystery, especially when Jeff's clearly the better player. Even more frustratingly, Jeff is powerless to help Andi with her issues with the racist girls' basketball coach. Andi doesn't want Jeff to call his sportscaster dad to shine a light on the issue. Instead, she cooks up a plan…which I won't spoil!
Read to find out the ending. It's satisfying.
I'm hoping for a sequel. I know (from my two kiddos) there's two whole sports "seasons" left in the middle school year, so I hope Feinstein will tackle another Jeff and Andi tale in a whole new sport.
