Kirkus Reviews

High school freshman Aliya Javaid is miffed about moving from Tampa to Milwaukee.Though she's now closer to her grandparents, Aliya misses the beaches, food, friends, and her basketball team. At her new Islamic school, she tries out for the girls' basketball team-only to realize they aren't that good. But with their new, more experienced, coach, Jessica Martinez, they begin to practice harder, focusing both on skills and teamwork. When Aliya, whose family is Pakistani and Indian, gets overwhelmed by balancing schoolwork and practice, her grandfather's reminder that mistakes are part of learning helps ground her. Over the course of the season, the team improves, drawing a cheering audience. When they're unfairly matched against a higher-performing team, Coach Martinez's advice to play their best stands them in good stead. The all-Muslim, hijab-wearing team attracts a fair share of media attention, though reporters always try to pin them down to identity-related narratives. The girls express their discomfort and collectively decide to steer their interviews to basketball and their hopes for the team. Though some of the dialogue is stilted, the story effectively builds on smaller moments and victories as the girls learn to collaborate, iron out team dynamics, and celebrate small victories. Aliya, too, grows and gains confidence in her abilities and talent. The dynamic illustrations make use of interesting compositions to reflect the game's pace and the characters' inner growth.An inspiring sports story that focuses on more than the score. (character studies, cover concepts) (Graphic fiction. 8-12)

Publishers Weekly (Thu Oct 31 00:00:00 CDT 2024)

Auden’s National Book Award–winning 1956 collection is restored to print for the first time in decades in this essential reissue. Perceptively introduced by Jacobs (Breaking Bread with the Dead) and featuring illuminating notes on historical context and Auden’s biography, as well as the poet’s own comments taken from letters and lectures, this volume is arguably the highlight of Auden’s writing during his years in the U.S. The title poem is no less than an attempt to capture Western civilization in verse, masterfully exploring Christianity, empathy, and human connection by writing of Achilles’s brutal, martial world in which hardships were “axioms to him who’d never heard/ Of any world where promises were kept/ Or one could weep because another wept.” Elsewhere, in chiseled, musical stanzas, Auden’s marriage of form and erudition alight on the love “deep below our violences” with an eye on modernity—conflicted, at times barbarous—and its historical underpinnings. These are hymns of “late man, listening through his latter grief,” epigrammatic and wise, witty and humane (“Small crooks flourish in big towns”; “Romance? Not in this weather”). This exquisite document of its century is irrefutable evidence of Auden’s skill and depth of insight. (May)

School Library Journal (Tue Oct 01 00:00:00 CDT 2024)

Gr 7–10 —High school freshman Aliya is worried about adjusting to her new Islamic school in Milwaukee after moving away from a happy social life in Florida. The cold alone is enough to make her nervous, but leaving her friends and basketball team behind seems like too much. At her new school, she joins the all-girls basketball team—which is infamously terrible—but it's there that she finds the support and friendship she had hoped for. Based on a true story, this fictional graphic novel is first and foremost a basketball triumph story. Plenty of informational content about the team's Muslim identities is delivered through the backstories of the players and how they respond to the seemingly endless, invasive questions from reporters about their home lives and their hijabs. Zerrougui's bright, fluid illustrations capture the movement of a team sport nicely. VERDICT A focused and rewarding sports story that will leave readers cheering for the inspiring Peace Academy team, and a great recommendation for sports fans or new students worried about finding their place.—Sarah Maciejewski