The palpably engaging and whip-smart characterization ensures that the charisma and camaraderie run high among those working on the production. Equally determined to make the best sets possible with a shoestring budget and to get one of the Mendocino boys to notice her, the immensely likable Callie will find this to be an extremely drama-filled experience indeed. Callie's healing heart is quickly captured by Justin and Jesse Mendocino, the two very cute twins who are working on the play with her. Callie's just getting over popular baseball jock and eighth-grader Greg, who crushed her when he left Callie to return to his girlfriend, Bonnie, the stuck-up star of the play. Seventh-grader Callie Marin is over-the-moon to be on stage crew again this year for Eucalyptus Middle School’s production of Moon over Mississippi.
Characters are black by default those few white people in Ghost’s world are described as such.Īn endearing protagonist runs the first, fast leg of Reynolds' promising relay.įrom award winner Telgemeier ( Smile, 2010), a pitch-perfect graphic novel portrayal of a middle school musical, adroitly capturing the drama both on and offstage.
MONSTER WALTER DEAN MYERS SPARKNOTES SERIES
His three fellow “newbies” on the Defenders await their turns to star in subsequent series outings. He is self-focused enough that secondary characters initially feel one-dimensional, Coach in particular, but as he gets to know them better, so do readers, in a way that unfolds naturally and pleasingly.
Ghost’s narration is candid and colloquial, reminiscent of such original voices as Bud Caldwell and Joey Pigza his level of self-understanding is both believably childlike and disarming in its perception. Ghost is surprised to find himself caring enough about being on the team that he curbs his behavior to avoid “altercations.” But Ma doesn’t have money to spare on things like fancy running shoes, so Ghost shoplifts a pair that make his feet feel impossibly light-and his conscience correspondingly heavy. When he inserts himself into a practice for a local elite track team, the Defenders, he’s fast enough that the hard-as-nails coach decides to put him on the team. His dad’s been in jail three years now, but Ghost still feels the trauma, which is probably at the root of the many “altercations” he gets into at middle school. 8+)Ĭastle “Ghost” Cranshaw feels like he’s been running ever since his dad pulled that gun on him and his mom-and used it. This offering stands as a welcome addition to the literature of jazz: In a genre all too often done poorly for children, it stands out as one of the few excellent treatments. A lengthy introduction, glossary and timeline give background to the whole. It’s a very different look and treatment from that given to their earlier blues journey (2003), although equally successful at giving readers a visceral sense of its musical subject. Myers fils uses bold colors and lines straight from the muralists of the ’30s to create his illustrations, dramatic foreshortening and exaggerated angles a visual complement to the pulsing sounds being celebrated. A script-like display type appears sparingly, guiding readers to the sound of jazz embedded in the poems’ syncopated rhythms. Myers père presents readers with poems that sing like their subject, the drumming of African rhythms leading into a celebration of Louis Armstrong, an evocation of stride piano, a recreation of a New Orleans jazz funeral and a three-part improvisation among bass, piano and horn. A cycle of 15 poems and vivid, expressive paintings celebrate that most American genre of music: jazz.