Booked

Reviewed by: Jill O'Connor - North Yarmouth Academy, Yarmouth, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date: November 9, 2016

Review

Nick Hall is your typical teenager in many ways, plays too many video games, crushes on a girl, daydreams in class, deals with some bullying. And Alexander captures the voice of a middle school boy in an authentic and engaging way. The lens through which Nick sees the world is soccer though his father would like that lens to be through words. Nick's dad is an etymologist and he forces Nick to read his multi-volume dictionary. Nick does this begrudgingly, and the way that Alexander weaves some of the words into the story is brilliant, and with the right amount of adolescent snark. When Nick's beloved mom chooses to leave the family to take a job, it provides the reader with some well-crafted insight into how a teen-aged boy might react to this situation. Told in verse, this book is a quicker read and will be appreciated by more hesitant readers. A must-have for MG collections.

Overall Book Score: excellent