Icebreaker.

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

Both Too Many Men and Icebreaker maintain the Sports Stories series’ stylistic approach, which sees a middle school youth having to cope with a family problem while trying to play a sport, in this case hockey. Initially, readers might think that the title Too Many Men refers to the fact that Sam Douglas, who has just moved from Calgary to Ottawa with his two older brothers and parents, is the extra man on the Kanata Kings, where he is initially the backup goalie to the backup goalie. However, the title actually refers to his home situation following his mother’s breaking her leg in a car accident, a situation which requires the three young “men” to run the household for a week while their mother, her leg in a cast, is bedridden and their father is away on a business trip. Chaos ensues without Mom, and Sam’s school and hockey performance become negatively impacted.

In Icebreaker, Greg Stokes’s problems come in the form of a new stepmother and a stepsister, Amy, with the latter being the larger annoyance. When the pair’s parents become aware of the stepsiblings’ animosity, Greg and Amy agree to an in-home truce where they fake liking each other. However, following Amy’s making the school’s co-ed hockey team and being placed on the same forward line with Greg, their animosity finds a new venue for expression and divides the team, a situation which results in the pair’s being kicked off the Melville Marlies by their coach, who stresses team play. Acceptable recreational reads, both stories end positively, albeit somewhat too perfectly. Recommended.