Fic­tion

Ride High with the Wave

Sharon K. Solomon
  • Review
By – October 15, 2018

Ted Rich­man loves to swim; he’s one of the best back­stroke swim­mers on his school swim team. Enter Hiro Kiji­ma, new to the school and to the team. Hiro is also a back­stroke expert, and the boys become instant rivals.

But it turns out that the two boys have one major thing in com­mon: nei­ther of them can attend swim meets that are held on Sat­ur­days. Hiro has Sat­ur­day school to learn about Japan­ese cul­ture, and Ted goes to the syn­a­gogue with his fam­i­ly. Through the gen­tle advice of their grand­par­ents, the boys reluc­tant­ly decide to work togeth­er to con­vince the school to change the Sat­ur­day swim meets to Sun­day. They mount a cam­paign to sway the opin­ions of their team­mates, who will vote to deter­mine when the meets are held. A friend­ship slow­ly devel­ops between Ted and Hiro as they work toward their com­mon goal, demon­strat­ing that even rivals can be friends.

With a smat­ter­ing of Japan­ese proverbs and a touch of Yid­dish, this chap­ter book takes a humor­ous look at two fam­i­lies from dif­fer­ent cul­tures by high­light­ing their many similarities.

Rec­om­mend­ed for ages 8 to 12.

Mar­cia Ber­neger is a retired teacher who lives with her hus­band and three crazy dogs. She taught both first and sec­ond grade, as well as spe­cial edu­ca­tion. She cur­rent­ly teach­es Torah school, in addi­tion to her vol­un­teer work in class­rooms, libraries, and with var­i­ous fundrais­ers. She lives in San Diego.

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