Joanna is the only girl on the middle-school hockey team, and she doesn't care that everyone, except her best friend, Ben, is pressuring her to get off the ice. When Ben takes up with her worst enemy--rich, cruel Valerie--the public ridicule of the girl athlete becomes worse. The fast sports action in this first novel is absolutely thrilling, building to the climax halfway through the story, when Jo plays brilliantly for the team and enables the star player to make the winning goal. But the second half of the book barely mentions the game as Jo deals with the school lunchroom jungle and difficulties at home, including Grandpa's Alzheimer's and move to a nursing home. But Jo's first-person, present-tense narrative is fast and funny, especially the view of portentous adult authority figures, and readers who are caught up by the sports will stay around for the family and friendship drama.

Seventh-grader Jo remains a dedicated hockey player despite adult disapproval and hazing by her male teammates. That isn't all she deals with though, as Fitzgerald adds in a sports-lout father, issues of popularity, a potential romance, and a senile grandfather. Missing the genre's "big game" conclusion, this becomes pretty soapy for sports fans but does have a strong narrative voice.

Seventh-grader Joanna Giordano is great at hockey, but the only way she can play in her school is on the boys' team, a fact that doesn't sit well with everyone. Even Ben, Joanna's long-time best friend, is leery. She tries out for the team and makes it. This creates more problems with the bully of a teammate; a vixen classmate; and even Ben, who also makes the cut. The bully tries to sabotage Joanna on the ice, and Ben seems to be pulling away from her. When Joanna's winning goal crushes an opposing team, she earns some grudging respect. Her waning friendship with Ben continues to raise concern, but all ends well, though the author offers no easy solutions to all Joanna's problems. FitzGerald provides humor and has a good ear for the way teens really speak and act, so the kids come off as realistic and familiar. Subplots point out hassles Joanna faces at home. Joanna's relatable, feisty and stands up for herself. (Fiction. 10-12)

By turns comical and poignant, this debut novel is narrated by Jo, a plucky seventh grader and the only girl trying out for the middle-school ice hockey team. Although her best friend, Ben, also hopes to make the team, he cautions her that a popular tough guy doesn't want her on the squad and "he's going to do everything he can to make you look bad." Jo, however, refuses to be intimidated, sticks with the tryouts and lands a spot on the team. Yet it is anything but smooth skating: her teammates refuse to pass her the puck, Ben begins to avoid her, and her hot-tempered father is ejected from the first game for what Jo wryly dubs "one of his spectacular public displays of poor sportsmanship." Jo's life off-ice also hits some rough spots. Her parents have recently separated; she sorely misses her older brother, who is away at college; and her grandfather, suffering from dementia, eventually must move to the nursing home where her mother works. And Jo realizes that she might want to be more than friends with the still-distant Ben, who she fears is flirting with the self-absorbed, mean-spirited "queen of the seventh grade." Jo's snappy, present tense narrative jumps nimbly from her thoughts to dialogue, often with droll or touching segues between the two. Credible dilemmas, an appealing heroine and strong supporting characters keep FitzGerald's impressive first fiction gliding along apace. Ages 9-12. <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">(Apr.)

Gr 5-7-Joanna Giordano prefers ice hockey to figure skating and is determined to make her middle school team. Despite opposition from the other athletes (all male), the coach, the school principal, the father of her friend Ben-also trying out for the team-and many of the other seventh-grade girls, she perseveres and does indeed make the cut. Ben also makes it, but his desire to fit in with the other boys leads him to turn away from Jo. She also has to deal with her parents' separation, caused largely by her father's inability to control his temper, and her grandfather's progressive Alzheimer's symptoms. Jo manages to handle the various pressures and performs well on the ice when given a chance to get in the game, earning kudos from the coach and even a grudging compliment from her chief tormentor. Jo is a believable teen, albeit wise beyond her years, with a supportive mother, an older brother, and a friend who help her cope with a set of problems that might well make a lesser mortal throw in the towel, or at least hang up her skates. The rushed pace of the final chapter and a half is disappointing in an otherwise acceptable work of sports fiction.-Elaine Fort Weischedel, Milton Public Library, MA Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.