Thursday, February 11, 2010

Taking Sides by Gary Soto

I gave this book a rating of three out of five. The plot revolves around a Mexican-American boy named Lincoln Mendoza who has moved from the poor part of town to attend a mostly-white school. He has trouble adapting to the new school and doesn't want to lose his friendships from the old neighborhood. The problem is magnified. Lincoln is a star basketball player, and his new school is scheduled to play his old team next week. The white coach is riding Lincoln and questioning his commitment to the team, and Lincoln finds out something about the coach's past. Lincoln and his mother discover that they can't escape all of the negative things about society from which they've been running.

This book reminds me of the Matt Christopher series of sports books with a little more plot development. It's still a very easy book to read, and doesn't complicate the plot. It deals with social issues from the Mexican-American's point of view. It was a good story, but I prefer something a little meatier.

Lexile level from lexile.com 750

4 comments:

  1. Hi , i am a student of 7 grade and im doing a project of taking sides and i need 5 external and internal conflicts :?..

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  2. It's been a few months since I read the book, but Lincoln has quite a few problems to overcome. All of his external conflicts create internal conflicts. He has external conflicts due to his race, new classmates, old friends, teammates, and especially the coach.

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  3. Hi , i am another student going into 7th grade and i want to know whats the climax, conflict, secondary characters and theme.

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  4. I really think you should read the book to find out. I've already described the conflict, and I don't like giving away the climax of the books I've read. Let me know what you think after reading the book.

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