The Diverse Shelves Book Reviews

 CONTEMPORARY  REALISTIC FICTION: ARISTOTLE AND DANTE DISCOVER THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE BIBLIOGRAPHY: Saenz, Benjamin Alire. 2012.  ARISTOTLE AND DANTE DISCOVER THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE. New York, NY. Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers. ISBN: 9781442408937 PLOT SUMMARY  In this coming-of-age story of love, loyalty, and identity, two polar-opposite fifteen-year-old boys, Aristotle Mendoza and Dante Quintana, meet each other in the summer of 1987 in El Paso, Texas, and develop an inseparable friendship. While Ari is angry, quiet, and brooding, Dante is intellectual, genuine, and warm. Even in their differences, both teens are natural loners, and each are discovering new parts of themselves in the developing relationship they create. Through their friendship, they learn important truths about each other as their bond strengthens, facing powerful personal struggles related to the confusion, angst, and loneliness often found in the teenage years. Additionally, they learn what

 CONTEMPORARY  REALISTIC FICTION: DRAGON HOOPS BIBLIOGRAPHY  Yang, Gene Luen. 2020. DRAGON HOOPS. Broadway, NY. First Second. ISBN 9781626720794 PLOT Gene Luen Yang is a graphic novel writer and artist, a father, and a teacher at the Catholic private school, Bishop O’Dowd High School, and is inspired to follow and tell the story of the school’s basketball team, the Dragons, a team that everyone talks about. In 2014, Yang works to balance his life of family, teaching, and comic book creation while also following the all-star team members influential to the Dragons, and records the games, and conversations of the people who make up the all-star 2014 team, and who are working towards finally winning the state championship this season.  CRITICAL ANALYSIS  Based on actual events that Yang experienced in his time as a teacher at Bishop O’Dowd in 2014, all of the characters, namely the basketball coaches and players, as well as a few people influential to basketball in its history, are extrem