ISBN: 978-0-547-27981-7
$16.00
298p.
7th grade and up (School Library Journal)
Booklist Top 10 Sports Books for Youth, 2011; YALSA 2012 Best Fiction for Young Adults
Not only are Daniel (Mitch) True’s dreams of being the school newspaper editor dashed before his senior year of high school, he is also given the assignment of sports reporter. Mitch likes sports, but he does not want to spend all football season writing about his ex-friend and current football star Horst Diamond. When he and his photographer Kimi notice a new football star waiting in the wings on the football team, he thinks he won’t have to. In fact, he thinks he may have found the mysterious story of the year.
I am admittedly not a football fan. In fact, I subscribe to the sports selection from Junior Library Guild because I accept my sports-book inadequacies. That being said, I actually liked this book. The main character, Mitch, was a sports fan and not a sports participant. I think that gives the book a wider appeal. Although I skimmed over long accounts of the play-by-play sports action, I can easily see how that would appeal to teens interested in football.
I chose this book because it was listed on the Junior Library Guild’s sports selection page as an award winning book and I thought, “If I have to read a sports book, it better be a good one.”
