Kiki and Jacques

Kiki and Jacques is about how 12-year-old Jacques becomes good friends with a Somali girl named Saynab. Kiki is Saynab’s nickname so everyone calls her Kiki. Before I get started, here are some more things about Jacques: Jacques does not have the best life. His mother died (As if that wasn’t enough!), his father drinks, his grandmother’s shop is almost out of business, and he is being pressured by a bully to sell drugs.

Jacques first saw Kiki walking on the sidewalk. They looked at each other. Then, they moved on. Jacques saw Kiki again in school. She was a new student.The teacher said that Somali families were coming to America to escape war. Then, Jacques saw Mohamed!

Mohamed is another Somali kid. He was playing soccer and he was really good! Jacques was getting worried because soccer try-outs were soon and he had always been the team captain. So if Mohamed tries out for team captain, Jacques could loose his place! Meanwhile, Kiki and Jacques are become great friends and they talk very often. Jacques finds himself attracted to Kiki, even though he denies having a crush on her. They spend a lot of time together and they even secretly play soccer together! Kiki also seems to have a lot of faith in Jacques.

There was a dance coming up and a girl named Lucy has a huge crush on Jacques and asked him to the the dance. Jacques said that he couldn’t because he had to go a church event. He felt bad for letting her down. Now, it was time for soccer try-outs. He tried his best. It turns out, he is co-captaining with Mohamed! What a surprise!

At the church event, Jacques had a lot of fun. He saw Kiki, Mohamed (surprisingly!), and some other people that he knew. There was even African music that Mohamed started dancing to! Everything was going great until Jacques’s father came in drunk and Jacques and his grandmother had to take him home.

One day, while Jacques was working at his grandmother’s shop, another store was robbed and then, BOOM! A man named Mr. Silverstein fell to the ground, hurt. Nobody saw what had happened. Mr. Silverstein was rushed to the hospital, but luckily, he was okay. Mohamed was working at the store nearby so the police took Mohamed and Kiki to the police station and asked them a few questions. Even though he didn’t really like Mohamed, Jacques was still worried that Mohamed might go to jail! Fortunately, Kiki said he was okay.

Now, it was time for the first soccer game of the season. Mohamed was killing it! Then, someone ran past Jacques and hit him in the jaw! Jacques fell to the ground. At first, his jaw was just numb, but then, it started to hurt. Mohamed saw the whole thing and stood over Jacques. Then, he started yelling at the other team. Jacques likes Mohamed a little more now. At least Jacques was okay to play. Then, the game continued. When it was over, the coach told Jacques’s team to attend the girls’ soccer game to show support. Jacques did that. When he looked at who was playing, he saw someone he knew and didn’t expect to see there. Who was it?

Kiki and Jacques refers to drugs so I don’t recommend it to younger kids but overall, it was a good book. You can really see through the eyes of the characters. I recommend this book to ages 9-13.