Review Detail

Playing for Keeps (Spotlight Sprinkles)

Middle Grade Fiction 322

Sports AND romance-- the perfect combination!

March 05, 2026 (Updated: June 06, 2026)

Overall rating

4.7

Plot

5.0

Characters

5.0

Writing Style

4.0

Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)

N/A

Aaliyah is starting 7th grade at Glen Creek Middle School, but hasn't heard from her long time best friend Travis for a while. She's surprised to find that he's grown seven inches, gotten muscles, and become a topic of conversation among the other girls at school, who all think he is cute. This includes popular soccer star Harlee, who is apparently "going out" with him. Even Aaliyah gets a little flustered when talking to him now. Travis is a soccer star, and all of Aaliyah's friends, including Emma, seem to be involved in a sport or activity, while she just plays piano on her own, since she is too shy to play in public. Aaliyah feels like she is "popular, but not uber popular", and fairly happy with her life, but is discombobulated without her best friend. Due to some misunderstandings, she thinks he is acting like a jerk, and she doesn't appreciate having to give Harlee information about his favorite color. The two eventually talk, and Travis tells her that an 8th grader on his soccer team, Zac, would like to take her to the Harvest Dance. This is a problem, because Emma has a crush on Zac. Travis and Harlee are in the same homeroom with Aaliyah, and Mr. Paulson has assigned them all a short "getting to know you" project. Aaliyah's involves a lot of pictures of Travis, and in putting it together, she realizes how much he means to her. She learns a lot about her classmates during these presentations, including the fact that Harlee lives with her wealthy but disinterested grandparents, and is being raised largely by nannies. Aaliyah is motivated by an insistent and somewhat geeky 6th grader, Connor, to perform a piano and clarinet duet at the school recital, and she gets a lot of compliments on her playing, even though performing in public is outside her comfort zone. Eventually, she and Travis are comfortable enough in their 7th grade lives that Travis asks Aaliyah to the dance, and she accepts.

Good Points

It was such fun to watch Aaliyah struggle with very realistic problems, like possibly losing a best friend, dealing with drama, struggling with school work, and thinking that she doesn't have any special talents or skills, when she is an excellent piano player! My favorite character might well have been the well spoken and precocious Connor; I have to admit that I sort of hoped that he and Aaliyah would break conventions and go to the dance together! There are fun descriptions of fashions that won't necessarily go out of style, but which add some depth to the characters. Clothing is communication! There's even an episode of babysitting, which I wish we would see more in books, but which I understand is not something that tweens do as much of now. This is a great length, has a fabulous cover (the three books together will look AWESOME on display), and is a fun, fast paced read.

Readers who enjoyed Nelson's Cake Pop Crush, Darling's Crush books (which still circulate well after 12 years!), Dalton's Pulled Under, or Miller's Not If You Break Up With Me First adore this Spotlight Sprinkles series. It's a book that adults who are recommending titles to young readers should read right now; the Newbery titles are all well and good, but if you want to hook reluctant readers, THIS is a title that will do it!

I think as adults we forget about what thoughts REALLY fill up tweens heads, because we are not tweens anymore, and our own heads are filled with things like "What's for dinner?" and "How will tariffs affect my Roth IRA?", and, apparently, a lot of concern about everyone around us dying. For tweens, I think a lot of their mental effort goes into friendships, because that really defines who they are. For older middle school students, the idea of romance figures very strongly, and when this plays out in reality, can be very volatile. "Going out" with someone can take weeks of lead time, relationships are often short lived, and break ups are often messy and involve changes to friendships as well.

Oddly, there are relatively few books that deal with this, which is why I was so glad to see this new Spotlight Sprinkles series by Lee Heart that includes Meet Me at Sunset and Written in the Stars. I would have devoured these when I was in middle school.