Playing the Cards You're Dealt by Varian Johnson
Published by Scholastic Press on October 5, 2021
ISBN: 1338348531
Pages: 320
Genres: Realistic Fiction
Format: Chapter Book Fiction
Goodreads

The top concern for ten-year-old Anthony Joplin is winning this year’s Spades Tournament in an effort to restore his good name (he lost big time last year). He is also navigating his first crush, growing apart from his best friend, and having his eyes opened to the flawed person that is his father. Anthony would rather solve problems with words and diplomacy in a world in which peaceful resolutions are not seen as an option and a boy who doesn’t want to use his fists is not seen as “man enough”.  The story is told by an omniscient narrator that turns out to be one of the Joplin men watching from above. Johnson has a way with language, peppering his prose with similes and metaphors and fantastic sentences like “After forty-six photos and way too many kisses to count…” describing the morning of the first day of school. Johnson takes on tough family issues like alcoholism and gambling, and offers an alternative to toxic masculinity through Aaron, Anthony’s older brother, and through wisdom from the unseen grandfather narrator. The book offers a window into a Black family that is struggling but also supporting one another and it does it in an engaging way that fans of realistic stories about struggle and lessons learned and with a hopeful message in the end will enjoy.

Reviewed by Jill O’Connor, Merrill Memorial Library, Yarmouth