My Newest Book Crush

My newest book crush is for NIKKI ON THE LINE by debut author Barbara Carroll Roberts. A local author from Fairfax, VA, she captures a special love for the thirteen-year-old protagonist Nikki Doyle. No, this isn’t a ‘tween romance story. This book is a sportsbook, not my first choice genre of MG books. Nikki’s goal is to make a new club basketball team for eighth-grade girls. I can’t wait to share this title with my thirteen-year-old grandson to see if he relates to a girl who works overtime to practice for her competitive basketball team.

I enjoy Greg Pattridge’s rating system from Marvelous Middle Grade Monday. Here are 5 extra things I love about this book:

  1. The protagonist in this book is a realistic girl;
  2. Nikki has been a star on a recreational team and then she expands her goal to try-out for an even more competitive team;
  3. The author includes familiar friends and family conflicts;
  4. Nikki becomes friends with a neighborhood boy, Booker, a friendship she keeps secret from her girlfriends; and
  5. The basketball coach encourages team play, hard work, and not just winning.

I can’t wait to share this book with my MG readers who love sportsbooks and the theme of hard to reach goals. Previous to reading this book, my favorite basketball book I recommended was The Moves Make the Manby Bruce Brooks, School Library Journal’s best book of 1984, and a Newbery Honor book of 1985.

This blog post is my first to share on Marvelous Middle Grade Monday, a site I hope you will enjoy; the reviewers are excellent.

HAPPY SUMMER READING!!

9 Comments

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9 responses to “My Newest Book Crush

  1. this sounds excellent — thanks for the recommendation.

  2. My daughter caught two typos in my blog post. Do you see them??
    Thanks for reading and I would love more comments!!

  3. Completely Full Bookshelf

    This sounds like a great book! I don’t typically read books about sports either, but this one sounds really compelling. Thanks for the great review, and welcome to MMGM!

  4. Welcome to MMGM. I’ll be honest, I passed over this book the first time I saw it mentioned. But it sounds like it has more potential than what I thought at first. Thanks for sharing it! I’ll give it another look!

  5. Welcome to MMGM! I have a granddaughter that would really love this story. Thanks for such an interesting review!

  6. Welcome to MMGM. I had not heard of this book and both girls and boys are always asking me about recommendations for basketball stories. Thanks for choosing it as your first feature on MMGM.

  7. I don’t tend to read a lot of sports books, but this one sounds really intriguing. I like that the coach focuses on good sportsmanship, not just winning. That was the kind of coach my dad was, but he got a lot of flack from parents for that.
    Welcome to MMGM!

  8. I hadn’t heard of this. Thanks for telling me about it. Good sports books are always a treat.

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