(2) 4-6 Illustrated by David Wilson. In this engaging graphic memoir, protagonist Misty is a fierce competitor who loves football: it combines strategy, teamwork, and tackling ("In other sports, I get in trouble for barely touching people!"). So when she finds out the summer before seventh grade that there's a town youth football league, she signs up. She persuades her best (and only) friend, Bree, to sign up with her; but as Misty throws herself into conditioning and acquiring skills despite the scorn of her male teammates, it soon becomes clear that Bree is more interested in clothes, hanging out at the pool, and a new friendship with a cool, popular girl. Misty's coach's statement that "football is all about getting knocked down and getting back up again" serves as the central metaphor for the book as middle school brings the pain of Bree's betrayal, the humiliation of trying unsuccessfully to fit in, and an imposed-from-without dissatisfaction with her appearance, among other challenges. Cleanly laid-out panels make for accessible reading, and the book does an excellent job of folding the football story line (including plenty of play-by-play game-time action) into that of Misty's life struggles. Readers will cheer as Misty eventually makes new, true friends; wins the acceptance of (most of) her football teammates; begins to take on a more responsible role in her family; and comes to an empowering conclusion: "I knew one thing for sure: I was done trying to be someone else." Appended with an author's note and a disclaimer about the dangers of playing tackle football.

Reviewer: Martha V. Parravano | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2022

(2) 4-6 Two years ago, Winston and Louise Volpe's father Lenny--beloved former quarterback for the Chicago Horribles--walked away and disappeared, a hero "lost in time and space, done in by his own broken mind." Now the siblings and their mother ("the incomplete Volpe family") are dealing with his absence in their own ways. At their middle school, Louise has thrown herself into discovering a cure for brain damage in Science Club, Winston into playing tuba for the band. But then...what is behind the mysterious behavior of a group of Winston's teachers? Is a ghost haunting the Chicago Horribles' locker room? Can Louise find a way to free the Horribles' live-bear mascot? Madcap antics ensue, but this is still, at its heart, a story of grief over the loss of a father and husband from CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy); as such, the novel would make a good companion to Jacqueline Woodson's Before the Ever After (rev. 9/20). Heider deftly balances screwball action and humor with poignancy and even profundity, and offers a hopeful conclusion--in which Winston finds his own "center of the galaxy" with a fellow tuba player, Louise finds an achievable science project, and all the Volpe family members find support in one another.

Reviewer: Dean Schneider | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2021

(2) YA When star defensive lineman Ash Bowman makes a bone-crunching tackle during a football game, he sustains a concussion that knocks him into a parallel world. The differences are subtle (stop signs are blue; football team colors have switched), but subsequent tackles yield much more drastic changes. After a concussion in that world, he enters one where he's a spoiled rich kid with a side job as a drug dealer. Then he gets knocked into a world where Brown v. Board of Education never happened, fundamentally altering white Ash's friendship with his best friend, who is Black. Still later, previously straight Ash finds himself in a romantic relationship with his male math tutor and dealing with the fallout when he comes out. And finally, he awakens as a female cheerleader dating the emotionally abusive star quarterback. It's a testament to Shusterman's storytelling powers that he is able to develop a cohesive narrative across these multiple shifts, exploring the subtle nuances of how they affect not only Ash but the entire supporting cast, though the novel falls somewhat short of the emotional heft the subject matter seems to demand. The device that ties it all together--that Ash has become "the center of the universe" and must learn to control these shifts to return to his original reality--is a bit tidy, but serves as a vehicle for provocative explorations of race, class, gender, and sexuality.

Reviewer: Jonathan Hunt | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2021

(2) K-3 Tate's latest picture-book biography (Swish!, rev. 11/20; William Still and His Freedom Stories, rev. 1/21) focuses on artist and professional football player Ernie Barnes (1938–2009). The opening pages describe Barnes's childhood struggle to find his place in "the Bottoms, a neighborhood of hardworking but poor African Americans" in Durham, North Carolina. A quiet, unathletic child, Ernie enjoys drawing and paging through art books at the house where his mother is employed as a cleaner. In an attempt to find social acceptance, he joins his school's football team; after a coach introduces him to bodybuilding, he begins to achieve athletic success. From there, the two parallel tracks of his life--visual art and football--continue until his late twenties, when he quits football for good and pours his energy into art, leading to international renown. Tate incorporates words from Barnes's memoir, From Pads to Palettes, into the story, grounding it in the artist's own memories and voice. At the same time, he makes the deliberate choice not to mimic Barnes's artistic style in the illustrations. (An afterword directs readers to Barnes's website and other sources, in order to "enjoy the true artwork of Ernie Barnes in its full glory.") It is impossible to tell the story of a Black American artist born in the 1930s without discussing segregation and racism, and Tate weaves those threads seamlessly into his narrative, drawing particular attention to the moment when Barnes exhibits his work at the North Carolina Museum of Art, a place where he had once been told by a docent that "your people don't express themselves this way." A comprehensive bibliography is appended.

Reviewer: K Rachael Stein | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2021

(2) YA Sophomore Wyatt Parker plays football, but only to forge a closer relationship with his older brother Brett, Grayport High's star quarterback. Their father is an alcoholic who lives vicariously through Brett and ignores Wyatt. With red tide threatening the fishing industry--the bedrock of their Massachusetts town's economy--football gives people some hope. In Kester's debut novel, the characters, the town, and the culture of high-school football are richly developed, with keen insight and pithy prose.

Reviewer: Dean Schneider | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2019

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Laura Freeman. In 1947 there was "an unwritten college-football agreement that said when integrated…teams played schools in the South, they wouldn't play their black players." Respress-Churchwell tells the fictionalized (somewhat awkwardly) story of how Chester Pierce and his Harvard team broke this rule. Color-saturated digital illustrations highlight Pierce's deep-brown skin tone--along with Harvard's crimson and gold school colors and the green football fields. Bib.

Reviewer: Elissa Gershowitz

(4) 4-6 Ultimate Sports Road Trips series. Following a rah-rah introduction about the featured sport, each entertaining, if superficial, volume highlights seven or eight stadiums or sites that would make great road trips for super-fans. The four- or six-page sections provide basic place facts (including name, location, date opened, capacity), overviews of the teams' or participants' histories, and captioned photos. A trip map is appended. Reading list. Glos., ind. Review covers these Ultimate Sports Road Trips titles: Ultimate NHL Road Trip, Ultimate Soccer Road Trip, Ultimate NBA Road Trip, Ultimate MLB Road Trip, Ultimate NASCAR Road Trip, Ultimate College Basketball Road Trip, Ultimate NFL Road Trip, and Ultimate College Football Road Trip.

Reviewer: Elissa Gershowitz

(4) 4-6 Ultimate Sports Road Trips series. Following a rah-rah introduction about the featured sport, each entertaining, if superficial, volume highlights seven or eight stadiums or sites that would make great road trips for super-fans. The four- or six-page sections provide basic place facts (including name, location, date opened, capacity), overviews of the teams' or participants' histories, and captioned photos. A trip map is appended. Reading list. Glos., ind. Review covers these Ultimate Sports Road Trips titles: Ultimate NHL Road Trip, Ultimate Soccer Road Trip, Ultimate NBA Road Trip, Ultimate MLB Road Trip, Ultimate NASCAR Road Trip, Ultimate College Basketball Road Trip, Ultimate NFL Road Trip, and Ultimate College Football Road Trip.

Reviewer: Elissa Gershowitz

(4) 4-6 Brooklyn loves ballet and hates football. Unfortunately, everyone in her new Texas town, including her quarterback stepbrother, are football fanatics. When the middle-school football team is required to take classes at her ballet studio, Brooklyn learns that football and ballet have some similarities after all. Brooklyn's feelings of alienation in her new surroundings are well wrought in this predictable but buoyant middle-school novel.

Reviewer: Mariko Turk

(4) K-3 Neighborhood Sports series. Neighborhood Sports series. “Don’t sit around indoors. Play kickball outside with your friends!” These upbeat volumes provide very simple rules and instructions for the title sports. While the texts’ helpfulness can be questionable (“Kicking is easy. Just point your toes down and kick”), their enthusiasm comes through in exclamation point-heavy writing and clear illustrations of children at play. Reading list. Glos., ind.

Reviewer: Elissa Gershowitz

(4) K-3 Neighborhood Sports series. Neighborhood Sports series. “Don’t sit around indoors. Play kickball outside with your friends!” These upbeat volumes provide very simple rules and instructions for the title sports. While the texts’ helpfulness can be questionable (“Kicking is easy. Just point your toes down and kick”), their enthusiasm comes through in exclamation point-heavy writing and clear illustrations of children at play. Reading list. Glos., ind.

Reviewer: Elissa Gershowitz

(4) K-3 Neighborhood Sports series. Neighborhood Sports series. “Don’t sit around indoors. Play kickball outside with your friends!” These upbeat volumes provide very simple rules and instructions for the title sports. While the texts’ helpfulness can be questionable (“Kicking is easy. Just point your toes down and kick”), their enthusiasm comes through in exclamation point-heavy writing and clear illustrations of children at play. Reading list. Glos., ind.

Reviewer: Elissa Gershowitz

(3) YA When Cade stumbles upon a girl half-dead in his family's Texas-border cornfield, he heeds her request to hide her. Cade enlists best friend Mateo's help, and the boys enfold Jane Doe in their world of football games and dances. But Jane is certain her past with a Mexican drug cartel will catch up with her. High-school romance mingles with dark suspense in Banerjee's debut novel.

Reviewer: Rebecca Hachmyer

(3) K-3 Encounter series. Illustrated by Nick Hardcastle. At age sixteen, American Indian Jim Thorpe was sent to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania. In spite of adversity, he thrived there as a multi-sport athlete, particularly as the 1912 football team's linchpin in beating--against all odds--West Point's Army team. Straightforward, conversational text and meticulous ink and watercolor art reveal the prowess and importance of this extraordinary athlete. Reading list. Bib., glos.

Reviewer: Carolyn Shute

(3) YA Three Alabama teens spend the summer working at Unclaimed Baggage, a store that sells the contents of luggage left behind at airports. Local girl Doris is a talented finder of things, Nell is a Chicago transplant desperate for a job, and Grant is a former football hero struggling with addiction. The lost-and-found metaphor is an apt one for a summer of self-discovery and newfound friends in this thoughtful, nuanced novel.

Reviewer: Rachel L. Smith

(4) K-3 Neighborhood Sports series. Neighborhood Sports series. “Don’t sit around indoors. Play kickball outside with your friends!” These upbeat volumes provide very simple rules and instructions for the title sports. While the texts’ helpfulness can be questionable (“Kicking is easy. Just point your toes down and kick”), their enthusiasm comes through in exclamation point-heavy writing and clear illustrations of children at play. Reading list. Glos., ind.

Reviewer: Elissa Gershowitz

(3) 4-6 Sports All-Stars series. Succinct, easy-to-read biographies of these sports stars each include a brief look at the person's childhood before focusing on that individual's particular training and road to athletic success. Dramatic narration, direct quotes, color photographs, and sidebars round out the informative main texts; "All-Star Stats" for that sport are appended. There are four other fall 2018 books in this series. Reading list, websites. Glos., ind. Review covers these Sports All-Stars titles: Aaron Judge, Breanna Stewart, Dak Prescott, and Giannis Antetokounmpo.

Reviewer: The Horn Book, Inc.

(3) 4-6 Sports All-Stars series. Succinct, easy-to-read biographies of these sports stars include brief looks at each person's childhood before focusing on that individual's particular training and road to athletic success. Dramatic narration, direct quotes, color photographs, and sidebars round out the informative main texts; "All-Star Stats" for that sport are appended. Reading list, websites. Glos., ind. Review covers these Sports All-Stars titles: Danica Patrick, Derek Carr, Ezekiel Elliott, Kris Byrant, and Matt Ryan.

Reviewer: The Horn Book, Inc.

(3) 4-6 Sports All-Stars series. Succinct, easy-to-read biographies of these sports stars include brief looks at each person's childhood before focusing on that individual's particular training and road to athletic success. Dramatic narration, direct quotes, color photographs, and sidebars round out the informative main texts; "All-Star Stats" for that sport are appended. Reading list, websites. Glos., ind. Review covers these Sports All-Stars titles: Danica Patrick, Derek Carr, Ezekiel Elliott, Kris Byrant, and Matt Ryan.

Reviewer: The Horn Book, Inc.

(3) 4-6 Sports All-Stars series. Succinct, easy-to-read biographies of these sports stars include brief looks at each person's childhood before focusing on that individual's particular training and road to athletic success. Dramatic narration, direct quotes, color photographs, and sidebars round out the informative main texts; "All-Star Stats" for that sport are appended. Reading list, websites. Glos., ind. Review covers these Sports All-Stars titles: Danica Patrick, Derek Carr, Ezekiel Elliott, Kris Byrant, and Matt Ryan.

Reviewer: The Horn Book, Inc.