Bea Mullins Takes a Shot

November 11, 2024
After Toronto’s Glenwood Middle School gymnasium floods, white-cued 12-year-old Bea Mullins, who would rather play video games than sports, thinks she’s finally found a way out of the athletic humiliation that is gym class—until school administrators encourage students to join a Glenwood-affiliated after school sports team that practices and competes in off-campus facilities. Bea’s athletic prodigy bestie, East Asian–cued Celia, persuades her to sign up for the Glenwood Geese, the school’s first all-girls ice hockey team; Bea begrudgingly agrees, if only because it’s her father and brother’s favorite sport and it provides an opportunity to spend more time with her BFF. At practice, Bea encounters ambitious Latinx teammate Gabi, who reveals that if the team can’t improve their game or secure capital through fundraising, this will be their last season. A sweet first crush and tertiary friendship drama compel Bea to examine her motivations, goals, and boundaries in Deibert’s promising sports-positive debut. Confident prose renders distinctively drawn characters alongside exhilarating hockey action, shining a light on girls in sports, specifically ice hockey. Ages 8–12. Agent: Kurestin Armada, Root Literary.

December 15, 2024
A 12-year-old faces her fears of failure and rejection when she joins the girls' ice hockey team at her middle school. After her embarrassing play at basketball camp two summers ago, white Canadian seventh grader Bea Mullins swore she would never play a team sport again. But a flood in the gym cancels class for the semester, and students are urged to take up extracurricular sports instead. At the insistence of her best (and only) friend, Celia Chan, Bea reluctantly agrees to sign up for the girls' hockey team, which will be disqualified if they don't find enough players to meet league regulations. Bea is convinced everyone on the team will blame her if they lose, especially Gabriela Vega Mart�nez, one of the co-founders, who dreams of playing professionally. But Bea soon discovers that most of her teammates are beginners, too, and Gabi may even want to be her friend. As Bea finds her footing on the ice, she must confront her own self-doubt, deal with challenges in her friendships, navigate new same-sex romantic feelings, and learn how to support her team. Although the premise is engaging, the story and the message of inclusion suffer from weak characterization, particularly in the cast of secondary characters, who are developed only at a surface level. Ambitious, driven, overachieving Chinese Canadian Celia isn't well rounded enough as a personality to move beyond stereotype, while Colombian immigrant Gabi feels developed primarily to teach a message. A pass that never reaches the goal. (author's note)(Fiction. 9-12)

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January 1, 2025
Grades 4-7 Soon after Bea's middle school's gym floor is damaged by flooding, the coach strongly encourages parents to have their kids join an extracurricular sport as an alternative to gym class. Bea, a seventh-grader, reluctantly follows Celia, her best friend, around the cafeteria, where they sign up for the girls' ice hockey team, partly because Celia is enthusiastic, partly because Bea enjoys watching hockey on TV, and partly because she's attracted to Gabi, the cool eighth-grade girl staffing the hockey sign-up table. Soon Bea realizes that she has a crush on Gabi, but she tries to put her feelings aside during practices and when Gabi takes time to teach her how to play hockey. Meanwhile, Bea is beginning to enjoy her first team experience. Bea is a likable character who is tentative in approaching challenges. Set in Toronto, where Deibert grew up, the perceptive first-person narrative traces Bea's experiences and shifting emotions at home, at school, and at the rink. The continuing rapid growth of girls' ice hockey expands the audience for Deibert's enjoyable first novel.

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