Rocket Blues. David Skuy. Toronto, ON: Scholastic Canada, 2014. 236 pp., trade pbk. & html, $9.99 (pbk.). ISBN 978-1-4431-3375-3 (pbk.), ISBN 978-1-4431-3376-0 (html). Grades 4-7 / Ages 9-12. Review by Mark Mueller. **** /4

excerpt:

She smirked and pressed the elevator button. He head to the front door.

“There’s more to life than hockey,” she called out.

He shook his sticks in the air and, without turning around, said, “You’re the funniest person I know. See ya.”

Bryan “Rocket” Rockwood is a passionate young teenager who has one passion and dream in life, that of becoming a professional hockey player. In spite of his size, Rocket seems to have a lot working in his favour. He is one of the fastest skaters and top scorers on the Huskies, an AAA minor league hockey team. The unthinkable happens when he is cut from the Huskies and joins the Blues, an AA minor hockey team, at the behest of his friend Maddie. After his first practice game with the Blues, Rocket is dismayed to see that his fellow team members are not as passionate about the sport as he is. When the Blues are called into a match with the Huskies, Rocket is forced to confront some life issues that he was ignoring all along: the realities of dealing with poverty; maintaining a reputation at school; and the possibility that there might be more to life than the game of hockey.

     Rocket Blues is the latest book from the David Skuy, author of the “Game Time” hockey series and the award-winning novel Undergrounders. Like Skuy’s other novels, Rocket Blues is an extremely fast-paced novel with compelling hockey scenes. This is the second David Skuy novel that I’ve reviewed, and I’m beginning to appreciate his ability to create novels for reluctant readers that deal with sensitive issues. Rocket Blues is a very good-coming-of age novel that I think many readers will enjoy.

Highly Recommended.

Mark Mueller is the Education Librarian at Tyndale University College in Toronto, ON.

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Published by The Manitoba Library Association ISSN 1201-9364

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