Can Aiden learn to stand his ground on his new home ice?
Meet Aiden Mallory. He’s trying to find his bearings while coping with the loss of his father — an NHL player who died in a car accident — and moving back to his dad’s hometown of Prairie Field, where he is STILL a big deal.
Aiden loves hockey, but his feelings about moving and his dad’s death cause him to struggle at tryouts. Then the minor hockey association announces a brand-new U13 tournament: the Luke Mallory Memorial. As Aiden tries to find his place on his new team, and among his new teammates, he will do anything he can to live up to his dad’s legacy. But what happens when Aiden’s determination to play well puts everything else at risk?
From Lorna Schultz Nicholson comes a powerful portrayal of a boy’s experiences with anxiety as it relates to sports and friendship and grief.
There are novels that include some ice hockey action, and then there are true ice-hockey novels with nonstop, satisfying hockey action, characters and storyline. Author Lorna Schultz Nicholson, a former hockey player and coach herself, serves up the latter.
Sixth-grader Aiden is not just reeling from having lost his hockey-legend father. He is struggling to adapt to a new town and team, put up with a bullying teammate and live up to his father’s reputation. This novel isn’t about how he plays so much as how he rises above these challenges by finding his inner coach and learning to generate positive energy.
From the award-winning author of The Serpent King comes a beautiful examination of grief, found family, and young love. Life in a small Appalachian town is not easy. Cash lost his mother to an opioid addiction and his Papaw is dying slowly from emphysema. Dodging drug dealers and watching out for his best friend, Delaney, is second nature. He's been spending his summer mowing lawns while she works at Dairy Queen.
But when Delaney manages to secure both of them full rides to an elite prep school in Connecticut, Cash will have to grapple with his need to protect and love Delaney, and his love for the grandparents who saved him and the town he would have to leave behind.
Let’s begin with what this novel is not:high action, mystery, romance. It’s neither humorous nor violent. Nor is it uplifting (except tenuously at the end).
It’s slow, perceptive and often heart-wrenchingly sad as it dissects grief and longing. It’s more about bereavement than anything, although the authentic teen banter often provides comic relief.
Westlock is an hour north of Edmonton, a prairie town with a long baseball history. But registrations are down, and there are only enough kids in town to fill one team. So Mo Montpetit's team is entered into the Baseball Alberta AA league. All the kids registered will be playing rep ball. No tryouts needed.
Mo's dad is a baseball legend in Westlock. And that's Mo's problem. Mo isn't very good. He can't hit a rep-level fastball. And as the season starts, the strikeouts and errors mount. The Westlock team loses game after game. How can these kids, not ready for rep ball, compete in a league well above their heads? And how can Mo step out of his dad's long shadow?
Perfect for fans of Adam Silvera and Becky Albertalli, this book will rip your heart out before showing you how to heal from tragedy and celebrate life in the process.
When Liam Cooper's older brother Ethan is killed in a hit-and-run, Liam has to not only learn to face the world without one of the people he loved the most, but also face the fading relationship with his two best friends.
Feeling more alone and isolated than ever, Liam finds themself sharing time with Marcus, Ethan's best friend, and through Marcus, Liam finds the one person that seems to know exactly what they're going through, for the better, and the worse.
This book is about grief. But it's also about why we live. Why we have to keep moving on, and why we should.