Kick, by Walter Dean Myers and Ross Workman

Title: Kick

Author: Walter Dean Myers and Ross Workman

Publisher: HarperTeen

Year: 2011

# Pages: 197

Category: Required

Genre: Contemporary Realistic

My Summary & Critique:

Thirteen-year-old Kevin Johnson is a good kid, trying to do the right thing, but he gets caught in a tough situation where speaking out might jeopardize a friend and her family. He is caught driving with a 13-year-old girl in a car that belongs to her father, and neither of them wants to tell the police the whole story. So Kevin keeps quiet and spends some time in jail until a concerned judge and police officer step in to try and help Kevin through this difficult situation. Since Kevin’s father was a police officer killed in the line of duty years before, Sergeant Brown feels a special drive to help Kevin get back on the right track, so he takes him under his wing and serves as a mentor to Kevin. By the end of the book, the Sergeant has coaxed the story out of Kevin about what happened the night he was arrested and has helped the girl’s family as well.

I loved the backstory of this book: successful author responds to a young reader’s emails and the two of them, student and mentor, write a novel together. What a fantastic idea! The result is this novel, told in alternating chapters, from the points of view of two of the novel’s characters. Young high school student, Ross Workman, writes the chapters from 13-year-old Kevin’s perspective while veteran author, Walter Dean Myers writes with the voice of Sergeant Brown. I loved the juxtaposition of mentor author with mentor policeman and I think the overall project produced a successful story to go with the “gimmick.” Although I thought the writing was a bit choppy and sometimes forced, and the content is pretty simple, the story would have wide appeal to teenagers, especially middle school boys or soccer enthusiasts. The story itself is interesting and well-paced with enough mystery In the plot to keep the reader turning the page to find out what actually happened that night. It is also quite believable, without too much drama, and the language is clean enough to be recommended for the classroom. While this is not the kind of novel I would particularly enjoy for my own pleasure reading, it was worthwhile and I have filed it away to recommend to readers with particular interests in mind and I’m grateful for a novel with respectable male leads.