Wrong side of the court

First Title Value for Searching:

Personal Author:

Khan, H. N.

Physical Description:

305 pages ; 22 cm.

Genre:

Bildungsromans.

Summary:

Fifteen-year-old Fawad Chaudhry loves two things: basketball and his mother's potato and ground-beef stuffed parathas. Both are round and both help him forget about things like his father, who died two years ago, his mother's desire to arrange a marriage to his first cousin, Nusrat, back home in Pakistan, and the tiny apartment in Regent Park he shares with his mom and sister. Not to mention his estranged best friend Yousuf, who's coping with the shooting death of his older brother. But Fawad has plans: like, asking out Ashley, even though she lives on the other, wealthier side of the tracks, and saving his friend Arif from being beaten into a pulp for being the school flirt, and making the school basketball team and dreaming of being the world's first Pakistani to be drafted into the NBA. All he has to do now is convince his mother to let him try out for the basketball team. And let him date girls from his school. Not to mention somehow get Omar, the neighborhood bully, to leave him alone...

Subject Term:

Pakistanis -- Canada -- Juvenile fiction.

Teenage boys -- Fiction -- Juvenile fiction.

Basketball teams -- Fiction -- Juvenile fiction.

Basketball stories -- Juvenile fiction.

Audience/Lexile:

HL 690 L

Publication Info:

Canada : Penguin Teen, an imprint of Penguin Random House Canada Young Readers, 2023, c2022.

Subject:

Pakistanis -- Canada -- Juvenile fiction.

Teenage boys -- Fiction -- Juvenile fiction.

Basketball teams -- Fiction -- Juvenile fiction.

Basketball stories -- Juvenile fiction.

Bildungsromans.

Adolescent boys

Male adolescents

Basketball -- Clubs

Basketball -- Fiction

Basketball -- Juvenile fiction

SAILS ISBN:

9780735270879

9780735270893

Available:

Library	Shelf Number	Shelf Location	Status
Searching... Attleboro Public Library	YA KHAN,H	YOUNG ADULT FICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Dighton Rehoboth Regional High School	FIC KHA	Stacks	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Mansfield Public Library	YA FIC KHAN	YOUNG ADULT FICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Mattapoisett Free Public Library	YA KHA	YOUNG ADULT FICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Norfolk Public Library	YAF KHAN, H.	YOUNG ADULT FICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Seekonk High School	FIC KHA	FICTION	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

Fifteen-year-old Fawad has big dreams about being the world's first Pakistani to be drafted into the NBA. A first-generation Pakistani coming-of-age story for fans of David Yoon and Ben Philippe.

Fifteen-year-old Fawad Chaudhry loves two things: basketball and his mother's potato and ground beef stuffed parathas. Both are round and both help him forget about things like his father, who died two years ago, his mother's desire to arrange a marriage to his first cousin, Nusrat, back home in Pakistan, and the tiny apartment in Regent Park he shares with his mom and sister. Not to mention his estranged best friend Yousuf, who's coping with the shooting death of his older brother.

But Fawad has plans: like, asking out Ashley, even though she lives on the other, wealthier side of the tracks, and saving his friend Arif from being beaten into a pulp for being the school flirt, and making the school basketball team and dreaming of being the world's first Pakistani to be drafted into the NBA. All he has to do now is convince his mother to let him try out for the basketball team. And let him date girls from his school. Not to mention somehow get Omar, the neighborhood bully, to leave him alone . . .

Reviews (1)

Kirkus Review

A Pakistani Canadian teen strives to break away from his often violent neighborhood in this thoughtful debut. Despite his small stature and his mother's disapproval, Fawad Chaudhry dreams of becoming the first NBA player of Pakistani descent. Those ambitions are a far cry from the realities of life in Regent Park, a housing project in a rapidly gentrifying section of Toronto. Since Fawad's father's death in a traffic accident two years earlier, the family has been struggling more than ever to get by. When the older brother of his best friend, Yousuf, is killed on their street, Fawad's world is once again shaken. When he begins dating Ashley, a well-to-do Chinese and White classmate from the nicer part of the neighborhood, he is introduced to a world of fancy dining and wealth he'd never before experienced. But when Ashley sees firsthand how tumultuous life for kids from Regent Park can be, Fawad begins wondering if he can ever be perceived as more than just a teen from the projects. Khan creates a moving portrait of an immigrant teen who has experienced grief and poverty from an early age. The first-generation, multinational Muslim community of Regent Park is vividly portrayed, as are the culture clashes Fawad frequently has with his mother. Readers will become invested in caring and wondering about the impact of gentrification on the residents. An interesting and heartfelt portrait of a teen yearning to beat the odds. (Fiction. 14-18) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.