Take Your Best Shot

Coy, John   Take Your Best Shot      

Macmillan/ Feiwel & Friends   2012

180p  $6.99 978-1-250-00032-3   VG    ms    Realistic fiction       4 for 4 series   

Life in sixth grade is very different for Jackson from life in elementary school.  Teachers seem to demand more, getting a date to the first school dance is a challenge, and his mother’s upcoming marriage and his dad’s new romantic interest test his emotions.  The four sporting buddies from the previous books in the 4 For 4 series have always hung together, and when Diego decides to play for a traveling basketball team instead of the school team, Jackson doesn’t know what to think.  Another buddy’s father is severely injured while serving in Afghanistan, and Jackson is the only one who can get through to his now reclusive friend.  This is definitely a feel-good novel about accepting challenges, and it offers confirmation that life changes, most often for the better.  The idea of writing a letter to oneself in the future will intrigue readers.  The basketball action is quick and fierce during the games and serves as the focus of the novel, which holds friendship high on the list of priorities in middle school.  Readers will be able to read this book independently from others in the series.  There is a lot going on in this slim volume, some of which might have been more fully explained to give added depth to characters and the situations in which they find themselves.           

VG    Lois McNicol      Friendship, Sports