Puppy Love
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A sweetly humorous middle grade novel packed with action, basketball, and a dash of magical realism about friendship and family, first crushes, and belonging, from acclaimed author Gary Soto.
Thirteen-year-old Jordan Mendoza has a huge crush on his classmate, Sierra, but he’s never going to win her affections if he stays a C student and keeps embarrassing himself on the basketball court. And it doesn’t help that his best friend, Antonio, likes to tease him about it all a little too much.
But when Jordan dives into the waters of a dangerous irrigation canal to save a drowning puppy, he’s suddenly got even more on his mind than kissing Sierra and making the starting team. Can he nurse the abandoned puppy back to health (and will his parents let him keep her)? Who threw her into the canal—and is it possible that there are more puppies needing rescue? And why are the cops suddenly at Jordan’s door, looking for him?
There’s something for every reader in this story’s mix of humor, sports, themes of thrilling independence, subtle strands of magical realism, and timely social commentary, all held together by a sweet and satisfying emotional core.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Thirteen-year-old Jordan Mendoza thinks his height will give him an advantage while playing on his school's basketball team, until he misses a game-winning shot in front of the entire gym, including his crush Sierra. While hanging out near a local canal—where he often goes to think and, more recently, to avoid his classmates' humiliating teasing—Jordan notices and rescues a helpless puppy struggling to swim in the freezing waters. After bringing it to a local shelter and returning home to sleep, Jordan has a dream that urges him back to the canal, where he finds another pooch. Subsequent visions lead to more canine rescues, and after Jordan redeems his skills on the court by scoring the winning basket in an important game, he grows closer to Sierra, who invites him to help her clean up litter around the canal. But when Jordan's excursions implicate him in a drug-related crime, the resulting inquiry threatens everything he's worked so hard for. Jordan is a protagonist worth rooting for; through his compassionate and earnest POV, Soto (Lucky Luis) spins each seemingly disparate narrative into a cohesive and lightly socially conscious read. Most characters read as Latinx. Ages 8–12.
