Sports Books

Bat 6 by Virginia Euwer Wolff
The year is 1949, just after the end of World War II, and two small Oregon towns are looking forward to the Bat 6 softball game of their 6th grade girls teams. The game, designed for good, clean fun, turns ugly when a racial incident occurs between one girl whose father was killed by the Japanese and another girl who is a Japanese-American.

The Contender by Robert Lipsyte
Don't like boxing? You'll be hooked anyway when you read this book about Alfred, a 17-year-old, who takes up boxing by chance to escape his rough life in his Harlem neighborhood.

Dean Duffy by Randy Powell
Dean Duffy is used to being the star of the high school baseball team so is unsure what to do with his life when high school is over. After wandering aimlessly for a while he is given a chance to get back in the game but does he really want to?

Danger Zone by David Klass
Jimmy Doyle is thrilled to be invited to play on the national "Teen Dream Team" until he faces his own shortcomings on the basketball court and the Neo-Nazi threats directed at his black skin while touring Europe. He begins to wonder if basketball, his consuming passion, is really all that important.

Devil's Bridge by Cynthia de Felice
Ben Daggett is determined that his name will be the only one to replace his deceased father's name on the Striped Bass Derby winner's board but he isn't prepared to deal with grown men who would do anything to win that title.

Heart of a Champion by Carl Deuker
Jimmy Winter's passion is baseball and with his father's harsh and heavy-handed coaching it looks like he will eventually end up on a pro team. Unfortunately the decisions he makes off of the ball field are not always the smartest ones and he ends up losing it all, including his very life.

Hoops by Walter Dean Myers
Seventeen-year-old Lonnie Jackson probably has what it takes to be a pro basketball player if he will only hold tight to his values. When he is offered money to throw the most important game of the year he must decide what is truly important to him.

Iron Man by Chris Crutcher
Beau Brewster yearns to win the Yukon Jack Triathlon consisting of swimming, running, and biking. However, in order to get ready, both mentally and physically, he must work out some of his other problems particularly in his relationships with is father, his coach, and his history teacher.

The Moves Make the Man by Bruce Brooks
Jerome, a talented African American, and Bix, an unstable Caucasian, strike an unlikely friendship when they share a dreaded home economics course together in the 1960's. On and off of the basketball court their differences are striking but their similarities are enough to cement the friendship.

Run for your Life by Marilyn Levy
Knowing how dangerous her neighborhood is, how stressful her parent's relationship is, how street-wise her little brother is, Kisha isn't used to thinking of herself as a "winner" so is suprised when the new director of the neighborhood center takes Kisha and her friends under his direction and begins a successful track team. Through him she learns a lot more than how to be a successful runner.

S.O.R. Losers by Avi
When the principal at South Orange River Middle School requires each student to participate in at least one school sport, it seems that those on the soccer team would rather be doing almost anything else and it shows in their playing and their attitude.

Tangerine by Edward Bloor
Paul Fisher, legally blind, has trouble adjusting to his family's move to Tangerine, Florida until he bonds with other soccer players at his school. Through their friendship and his own growing self-esteem he is finally able to confront his parents and disturbed brother about the "accident" many years earlier which led to his impaired sight.

Winner and Losers by Stephen Hoffius
Daryl is destined to fulfill his dream of being the state's top half-miler -- or is it his father's dream for him to do so? When Daryl collapses on the track and can no longer compete, his obsessive father begins coaching his best friend to take his place with dismal results for the friendship. Both Daryl and Curt begin to understand what is truly important...and it isn't running.