Can we clone you or at least take you home to our parents? The world is lucky to have people like you. It speaks well of your kindness in general. As such, their opinions can likely be taken as those of a somewhat distracted, less than fully observant reader.Įds. Preface: the reviewer read the last half of this book in the ER with a sick spouse. Pick it up and strap in for a phenomenal ride!Įds. I very much look forward to giving it a reread. I especially enjoyed the twist at the climax, just when things are looking most dire.Įxcellent reading for kids and kids-at-heart, High Score has thoroughly earned its Publishers Weekly and Booklist accolades. The actual heist is rollicking from start to finish, with plenty of mishaps and surprises to keep readers engaged.
The first half of the novel is gathering the players and setting up the heist, and the second is the execution. I'm a soft touch for character-driven work, and I love that these kids feel familiar and fresh at once. My favorite of the quartet is Audrey, a bubbly theater kid who’s dream role in the upcoming school play The Little Mermaid is Ursula rather than Ariel. He pulls together a dream team to achieve this, each fulfilling a specific role in the upcoming heist (the Brains, the Face, the Fingers, and the Muscle, respectively). Balancing time spent between the threatening halls of school and the neon floors of the arcade, readers follow Darius James/DJ, a retired ‘conkid’ who is forced back into the game when his best friend owes the notorious school bully a whopping 100,000 arcade tickets within a time limit. Ferraiolo, or The Great Greene Heist by Varian Johnson), and that’s part of what makes it so much fun. The events are heightened and hyperbolic (think The Great Splash by Jack D.
"Ocean’s Eleven meets kids in an arcade" is a fantastic premise in and of itself, and this story delivers on those promising expectations. I don’t typically write reviews, but this novel was written by one of the most creative and thoughtful writers I know and thus deserves a few remarks on why I love it so much.Ī high-octane middle grade heist story, High Score is snappy and smart in equal turns.
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