Honeycomb

Gr 6–10—Honeycomb follows the efforts of 15-year-old Nat as she and two other girls enter a Young Performers contest at the fictional Tall Grass Music Festival in Manitoba, Canada. Jess, her best friend, plays the guitar and sings, while the slightly older Harper thinks she's in charge. There is predictable tension, as Harper tries to assert her supremacy because her parents are professional musicians, while at the same time driving a wedge between Nat and Jess, who have been friends since elementary school. In Forcing the Ace, readers are not told Alex's age. Presumably in high school, (his English class is reading The Great Gatsby), he seems much younger. An aspiring magician, much to the disappointment of his surgeon father, he enters a contest for teens and finds himself paired with a girl who is a novice. Both novels emphasize the necessity of cooperation and persistence, as well as the importance of education and family. These high-interest, low-vocabulary stories will appeal to reluctant readers, especially those with an interest in the performing arts.—Marlyn Beebe, Long Beach Public Library, Los Alamitos, CA