Shakespeare Makes the Playoffs (review)

In Shakespeare Bats Cleanup (BCCB 7/03), Kevin Boland grieved for his deceased mother, lost and regained his place on the baseball team, got himself a girlfriend, and discovered a penchant for poetry. Here we rejoin him several months later as he opens a new poetry journal, which explains that baseball is going strong and poetry has become a comforting old friend. Grief, however, still sneaks up on him—"Sadness is a big dark bus/with a schedule of its own"—and the shine of his relationship with Mira has definitely begun to wear off; familiarity, it seems, has bred a bit of contempt. When Kevin meets Amy at an open mic night, he believes he's found a soulmate; they email regularly, exchanging and critiquing each other's poems, and even begin a collection of monster verse they plan to submit for online publication. There's regret, jealousy, doubt, and betrayal standing between Kevin and Amy and happily-ever-middle school-after, though, and there's nowhere on earth better to examine it than in a personal journal. Readers who met Mira in the first Shakespeare novel may be surprised at the change in her characterization here, but those personally well versed in early teen drama will probably be unconcerned—they'll simply accept that in junior high, the only thing you can count on is change. Kevin's gently sardonic introspection consistently rings true: "Amy's … a whole lot more/fun, though. How shallow is that?"