About five years ago my youngest sister, Tiny, received double dutch ropes for her birthday and we spent many hours learning to jump. It became almost standard that every night that summer we pulled them out and worked on transitioning in and out smoothly as well as tricks; all my little sisters are dancers so we worked on things like holding your foot by your head while jumping, toe touches upon entering the ropes, etc. It was a grand time.It should come as no surprise, then, that when I saw a book about double dutch I snagged it. I rented the audiobook version to pass the time on my daily commute more quickly and was hopeful that I would be swallowed up in the world of double dutch, learning new tricks and terms to share with my sisters. Sadly, I didn't love it. The main characters did double dutch together, but the book wasn't about double dutch. It may be my expectations that ruined it for me; there was a good storyline about literacy and poverty and friendship that was nice, but as a reader that hoped for hard core double dutch (is there such a thing?) I walked away disappointed.
Oh, and one thing that tells you a little bit about me: it was very difficult for me to listen to this book and not know how the character's names were spelled! This was my first discovery that when reading I really do see words rather than always hear them (as I know some readers do).
Overall, a mediocre read about a young girl struggling with literacy and a young boy struggling with poverty and the lengths they go to figuring both out.
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