Skip to main content

Arcady's Goal

By
                                     

Arcady's Goal
by Eugene Yelchin
Henry Holt, 2014.  234 pgs. Fiction

     Arcady is an orphaned ward of the state, because his parents were considered enemies of the Soviet state. He manages not only to endure but to prosper to a degree because of his soccer skills. He plays against the other orphans for food and respect and gets along as best he can until the unimaginable happens - he is adopted by a school teacher who wants to become his father in honor of his dead wife, who passed away before she could deliver a child. Arcady and Ivan Ivanych are often at cross purposes, Ivan trying to show love to his new son, and Arcady wishing to maintain his independence and to achieve his dream: to play for the Red Army soccer team. He is scorned at school because of his parents, and denied a tryout with the Red Army team because of his parents; but there may yet be a way, thanks to one boy who decides to be his friend. Eugene Yelchin, author of the Newbery honor book Breaking Stalin's Nose, has based this equally heartening book on his father's true story.  A terrific read for young and old.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

If You Like...KPop Demon Hunters

By
KPop Demon Hunters has been one of the most talked-about movies of the summer. If you loved this movie as much as I did, you don't want the magic (or the music) to stop. Try reading these books that touch on some of the same topics and themes as the animated hit! Brick Dust and Bones By M. R. Fournet New York: Feiwel and Friends, 2023. Fiction. 247 pages. Orphaned Marius works in the family business--as their cemetery's ghost caretaker. However, Marius also moonlights as a monster hunter in order to earn the costly Mystic currency he needs to bring his mother back from the dead. As the window to bring his mother back begins to close, Marius's exploits get more and more dangerous, and he may have set his sights on a monster too big to handle on his own. Like Mira, Marius longs for familial connection, and his work as a monster hunter will satisfy the thrill of demon hunting for fans the movie. Where's Halmoni? By Julie J. Kim Seattle, WA: Little Bigfoot, 2017. Comics. W...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: Kareem Between

By
  Kareem Between By Shifa Saltagi Safadi New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2024. Fiction. 324 pages.  Kareem loves football and as he gets ready to start seventh grade he dreams of someday becoming the first Syrian American NFL player. Seventh grade is not off to a great start for Kareem, after football tryouts don't go as he had planned, his best friend moves away, and his mom returns to Syria to help bring his sick grandfather to the US for treatment. So when Austin, the quarterback and coach's son, offers to talk to his dad and get Kareem on the football team in the spring, if he will cheat and do his homework for him, Kareem agrees. Kareem really wants to fit in at school and he is desperate to find a friend, but deep down he knows that doing Austin's homework isn't the right thing to do. And to make things harder, Kareem's mom asks him to be a friend to Fadi, a Syrian Christian refugee. He knows he should stand up for Fadi and help him adjust to the new school,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: A World Without Summer

By
A World Without Summer: A Volcano Erupts, a Creature Awakens, and the Sun Goes Out Written by Nicholas Day Illustrated by Yas Imamura New York: Random House Studio, 2025. Informational. 294 pages. In 1815 on a small island in Indonesia, Mount Tambora erupted. The blast was the largest in human history, and one of the deadliest. Though it couldn't be understood at the time, the deadly blast half a world away would lead to catastrophic famine in Europe, prompt westward expansion in America, and inspire the novel Frankenstein  by Mary Shelley. The global climate disaster following the explosion also led to inventions like modern meteorology and the early invention of the bicycle. The people living at the time couldn't have seen how everything was connected, but this fast paced narrative assures that readers will. As he did in 2024's Sibert winner The Mona Lisa Vanishes, Nicholas Day does an impressive job of weaving together different historical events into one single, compell...
Post a Comment
Read more