Fortunately, as a high school librarian, this is one of those tasks I relish. Locating that many award book was a huge challenge, however. I even had to make a trip to the local Scholastic Books Warehouse (where the school had a little bit of credit on its account) and to Half-Price books for low-cost additions.
Tomorrow is the third day of award-book-check-out. By the end of the day I will have seen fourteen classes. Whew!
One big problem: there is a real dearth of award-winning sports books for teen boys. It is a huge problem, in my estimation. Many teen award books feature male protagonists but most of those characters are the non-athletic types, or the characters are athletic but the focus of the book is not on sports.
I need your help locating good, high quality sports books for teens, preferably award-winning books. Here are the only YA award-winning books where at least a portion of the book focuses on sports that I have discovered:
Author
|
Title
|
Sport
|
Award(s)/Year
|
Alexie, Sherman
|
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian
|
Basketball
|
National Book Award-2007; LA Times Finalist 2008; Odyssey Award 2009;
Boston-Globe Award Book 2008
|
Feinstein, John
|
Last Shot: a Final Four Mystery
|
Basketball
|
Edgar Award 2006
|
Herbert, Geoff
|
Stupid Fast
|
Football; Track
|
Cybils Award 2011
|
Myers, Walter Dean
|
Slam!
|
Basketball
|
Coretta Scott King Award 1997
|
Myers, Walter Dean
|
Darius and Twig
|
Basketball
|
Coretta Scott King Honor 2014
|
Preus, Margi
|
Heart of the Samurai
|
Martial Arts
|
Newbery Honor 2011
|
Sharenow, Robert
|
Berlin Boxing Club
|
Boxing
|
Walden Honor 2012; Sydney Taylor Finalist 2012
|
Silvey, Craig
|
Jasper Jones
|
Cricket
|
Printz Honor 2012
|
Smith, Andrew
|
Winger
|
Rugby
|
Walden Honor 2014
|
Soto, Gary
|
Baseball in April and other Stories
|
Baseball (and ?)
|
Pura Belpre Honor 1996
|
Van Draanen, Wendelin
|
The Running Dream
|
Long distance running (female)
|
Schneider Family Book Award 2012
|
You see my problem? Half the population of the high school are boys. Half of those boys are reluctant or non-readers. Sports books are an avenue to get them reading. I need more sports books but they are hard to find. Any suggestions from you would be appreciated.
I asked Rock what his favorite book was in high school: Instant Replay by Jerry Kramer about the Greenbay Packers. It looks like it has just been re-released.
ReplyDeleteI recommend TT: Full Throttle by Nicole Winters. It's engaging, has lots of technical details but also lots of heart, and was one of the Childrens' Book Centre's Best Books for Kids & Teens 2014.
ReplyDelete