Ten Thousand Tries
Recommended Ages: 8-12
“Maybe it’s not your job to make everything better” (298).
Ten Thousand Tries by Amy Makechnie is a unique middle school novel that provides insight to those who suffer from ALS (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis).
The main character Golden idolizes Lionel Messi and with soccer star parents, it might be in his blood. His goal is to reach Ten Thousand hours practicing soccer to increase his skills and to reach the goal of his middle school soccer team making it to the championship game. However, reaching that goal isn’t going to be easy. Much is changing and much seems to be against him.
Golden’s family and his friendships are central to this book. While there are a few odd elements in this book that I could easily have done without (keep reading for that), the strength of family and friends is definitely a theme and not many young novels portray that. Golden has an older sister, Jamies, who is learning to drive and two younger sisters in elementary school, Whitney and Roma. His mother and father both played soccer and now coach Golden and Jamies’s soccer teams. Next door lives Golden’s best friend since birth, Lucy, who has been away for summer. And last but not least, Benny Ho lives several houses down from him and is also a best friend. Golden, Lucy, and Benny refer to themselves as the Three Musketeers. They also all love soccer and play on the same team (it is a small town).
While Golden is close with his friends, he has been pulling away from them all summer and hiding what really has been happening in his home due to the fear of facing reality and the fear of what his friends may say and think. The big change this summer is his father’s diagnosis of ALS. Golden thinks if they try hard enough, train hard enough, that somehow the diagnosis will reverse or stop and his dad won’t continue to decline. Makechnie does a beautiful and heartbreaking job of pulling back the veil on the decline and deterioration that ALS wroughts. From the beginning, the reader knows there is an expectation that dad will continue to decline and not make it. Readers follow Golden as he learns to come to terms with what this means and how he has to change his expectations. If his father’s diagnosis wasn’t enough, Lucy is moving and what better way to distract yourself from your father’s illness but to sabotage the sale of your best friend’s house so she doesn’t have to move.
While there is much to like about this novel and the middle grade perspective of a parent with ALS and big World Cup dreams, there are some odd things that I wish were not in the novel and just come across as weird. I think the purpose was to show the awkwardness of middle school, but I felt more awkward reading it. For instance, the book opens with him having to go to the doctor for his physical. Considering he plays sports, not unusual and relatable for some readers. However, his mother and his sisters are in the room with him while he is in a gown waiting to be checked by the doctor. It isn’t until the doctor arrives to do the physical that they leave and there is the mention of needing to check “the whole let’s-see-what’s-going-on-down-there-part” (4). It really is just an odd way to open a book.
Additionally, throughout various chapters there are mentions of science class, which starts with a lesson on Human Reproduction. The teacher announces, “No longer will you have to rely on the knowledge of your friends and bus mates to incorrectly educate you” (104). The use of words rely just really through me off as I would hope students would rely on their parents for accurate information. Again, I think the goal was middle school embarrassment, but I’m not sure. The science teacher popping with lessons on Human Reproduction (ovaries and sperm on page 116 and watching the miracle of life video on page 136) and assignments with sugar babies (they had to care for a pound of sugar like it was a child), was random and didn’t add to the story line, but detracted from it. I wish those elements had been omitted.
At the start of soccer season, there is a reference to “Hell Week” (47) for preseason conditioning and a majority of the book centers around soccer: training, captains’ selections, games, and hopes for a championship opportunity. There is also a joke made about “balls” (56) meant as a crude reference. The boys also laugh when the coach makes a reference to “ball handling” at practice (64). Additionally, Benny and Golden have an argument at lunch one day, to which another character cracks a joke “Lovers’ quarrel?” (107). As well as a racist joke on page 180 when Benny is called “Chopsticks.”
Mr. T is a gym teacher at school who appears to also be an athletic director. He wears multicolored scarves that he crochets with his six-year-old daughter (86).
As for spiritual things, Benny’s grandmother is talked about a few times and in one instance it says she “brings the dead to the living. She says our ancestors are all around us — we’re just too busy to notice” (64). The sister Whitney takes to faith and believing in God while dealing with their father’s diagnosis (which she discovers on YouTube – 195); meanwhile Golden is more indifferent and says things more like “the universe is responding to everything I’ve ever wanted. Telling me my plan is going to work. That anything is possible” (113). Later in the novel he does consider praying, but it seems mainly because his idol Messi is a “believer.” He says “I kneel by the side of my bed to pray, something I’ve only ever done because Mom and Dad told me to. But today I decide on my own. After all, Messi’s a believer too. I’ve seen him do it a hundred times— pointing at the sky when he scores, like he’s acknowledging something or someone up there who holds pieces of his destiny” (169). There certainly is anything wrong with wondering and questioning; however, the novel never gives any guidance or falls anywhere in respect to faith and religion, which is fine. The character is seeking and asking questions, but it may be a point worth following up with your reader about it.
Lastly, this novel obviously deals with some sensitive topic with a parent dying, but there is also Golden’s relationship with his mother that is rocky. While she is trying to hold everything together and take care of her husband, all Golden can see and focus on is all the normal stuff that is no longer being done. Not only must she learn to ask for and accept help, but it is also part of the dynamic character development of Golden and adolescence in general where you begin to look beyond yourself and consider those around you. Golden certainly grows in the area of being so concerned with himself and keeping things how he wants them to realize that he must let go and help where he can.
Other quotes from the novel worth sharing:
“Maybe Whitney is spending too much time on YouTube and everyone’s too busy to notice. Dad’s right. The Squirrels are annoying, but they’re part of my team off the field. They need a captain too” (197).
“But nobody is going to ask them the questions I’m still trying to answer—Were we destined to have a dad with ALS or is it all just random? Is this a test? To see how much we love him?
This is how I’d answer:
Ten thousand tries until we’ve mastered the impossible thing? That’s nothing. Nothing compared to how much I love Dad.
We create our own destiny” (198).
“When my team claps, I start to feel the energy again, the soccer gods rallying” (283).
“Messi said: If and only if you love something enough.
Didn’t I love them enough?
Didn’t I try my hardest?” (289). Things are falling apart for Golden, and he is still struggling to understand what HE can do to help heal his father.
“The world...is short on finishers,” [dad] says. “Finish...this!” (297).
“They still love Dad even though he can’t play soccer or coach their kids. This day feels special, like a reunion, and that wouldn’t have happened if Dad weren’t sick. It feels weird to actually be thinking of silver linings for a disease I’ve hated with all my guts” (335).
... “I could tell by the look in his eyes: he couldn’t love another team any more than the one we had. His body wasn’t strong anymore, but his mind and heart were. And in the end, that’s what we needed most...” (371).
Overall, I did enjoy the story. There is more than presented in this brief review with the dynamic of evolving friendships with Lucy and Benny, the intended move and interaction with Lucy’s Stepdad, as well as Jamie's learning to drive that adds some humor. There are strong themes of friendship, responsibility, and family and more that are positive and great for young readers. Additionally, the insight into ALS was educational, but the whole experience and dynamic of the family household could be relatable for any student or child who has a family member with a terminal illness. Opening that world to readers can allow for compassion and understanding.
