Wooding, Chris. Velocity.

Wooding, Chris. Velocity. Scholastic Press      2017  325p  $18.99  Hardback  ISBN 978-0-545-94494-6    ms/hs  Adventure  E-BN         

Cassica and Shiara live in the boonies in a time after a terrible global war.  They spend their free time racing.  Cassie is the fearless, reckless, decisive driver.  Shiara is her mechanic, who can build working vehicles from scrap and calculate winning strategies.  Together they make a great team, in spite of and because of their differences.
 

After winning a dangerous local race, they attract the attention of a promoter who wants them to participate in a national event.  The girls are considered underdogs but the crowd loves their gutsy determination.
 

There are exciting race sequences in which the girls manage to survive somehow in a world where forces are out to specifically destroy them.  The friendship is sorely tested but wins out in the end.  The girls discover that the deck was stacked against them from the beginning, and the glamorous world of racing is crooked and not what the projected image shows.

Velocity is a wonderful story of friendship that survives challenges and tests, set among exciting action scenes that include highly imaginative and dangerous threats to the girls. Readers in grades 7 and up will be drawn into this explosive world.      It would be an excellent purchase for middle- and high-school libraries, because of the exciting adventure and riviting action.

Summary: Set in the future after a global war, this is a story of ultimate car racing and the friendship between two teen girls.  It features exciting action-filled racing sequences with imaginative villains.  Grades 7 up.

Automobile racing-Fiction                                         --Joan Theal