It is a snapshot of Peter Friedman's life as he starts high school after a dream-shattering sports injury takes him from atop the pitcher's mound and positions him behind the camera's lens. As Pete adjusts to life on the sidelines as a sports photographer--his palm-stinging pitch now "plopped into the grass like a fat little dead pigeon"--he also watches in dismay as his grandfather begins to lose his grip on reality. How could the man who taught him everything he knew about photography suddenly need a Post-it in the kitchen with instructions for making toast?
Curveball is not a superficial romp through adolescence, though Pete does find himself "in testosterone" with a girl in his photography class, and newly aware of how tight girls' sports uniforms are. It has depth and substance, which Sonnenblick carefully balances with humor to create a well-crafted narrative that will appeal to fans of John Green and Nick Hornby. Resembling a marginally cooler Sam, of Freaks and Geeks fame, Pete is a character to whom readers can easily relate. His attempts to come to terms with his injury, cope with his grandfather's illness, and to simply not look like an idiot freshman will engage readers within the first few pages and will not let them go until the last. --Julia Smith, blogger and children's bookseller emerita