Review Detail

Great writing here, wit and warmth and righteous anger, and more than that: sophisticated thinking, social awareness and practical-utopian dreams. Moses Middleton has perhaps not done justice to himself yet in his young life. Perhaps as he enters his freshman year in high school, he feels he hasn't been pushing himself to achieve, he hasn't been giving it his all to realize his potential, he has avoided challenges and chosen the paths of least resistance. When he starts his school chess club, it's another perhaps half assed effort to get something more than mediocre going in his neighborhood and his life. But little does he know, this club and the mission to which it eventually is pledged -- to show up the privileged douchebags of Galton Prep -- is going to take him deeper than he expected into the lives of others, into the politics of his time, into his own capacities and talents, and into the on deck circle of adulthood. And it's great great fun to be along for this ride. Moses' friends are vividly drawn and their friendships are real and evolving before our eyes -- into a one-for-all- and -all-for-one spirit. This would have been my favorite book as a kid, and I'm so happy to be able to give it to the kids I know for the holidays. But their parents are loving it too. A great choice for reading together. Can't wait for the sequel.