Rainbow Wheels

Kelly L. Green is editor of the Canadian Book Review Annual’s
Children’s Literature edition.

Fifteen-year-old Justin is about to start high school, and he’s
nervous. Justin is not your ordinary adolescent, however. He’s a
promising young athlete who was rendered paraplegic by a tragic
accident. Rainbow Wheels chronicles Justin’s return to school, social
life, and athletics; his reconciliation with his father; and his
development of empathy.

It’s sad, but a whole truckload of good intentions won’t make a
book good. And Rainbow Wheels, with its wheelchair-inaccessible high
school, Justin’s saintly friends (Coraan, Francesca, and Larry who
keep his self-esteem high and his stress low), and Nettie (the
comforting and wise housekeeper from “Southern” Arkansas), is
oppressively loaded down. Alas, the characters are all stereotypes; the
plot is predictably and manipulatively sweet; and the language is so
stilted and cliché-ridden as to be almost unreadable. We certainly need
more good stories and books to which physically challenged children can
relate. However, all children deserve a standard of literature that this
book does not meet. Not a first-choice purchase.