travelteam

Travel Team by Mike Lupica ISBN: 0-399-24150-7 c2004 274 pages

Good sections to read aloud: p. 1 about how small he is pp. 16-17 where Danny is telling his dad about the tryouts

Summary: Danny Walker is one of the smallest kids for his grade, but he is one of the best basketball players. When he tries out for the travel team in 7th grade and doesn’t get picked, no one understands why, especially him. He’s always been on the travel team and deserves to be because of his talent. When he discovers that he wasn’t selected because of his size, he is really hurt and so is his father, a former basketball legend from the same town. His dad shows back up in town (he’s not around much and is divorced from Danny’s mom) and decides that his son deserves to have a basketball season as well, so he starts up one of his own. The only problem is that all of the boys have mostly been selected for the other team. Can Danny play with a bunch of boys who don’t have talent? Or, the real question is, does he want to play with them?

YA fiction--sports fiction; basketball; fathers and sons; schools

©Jennifer Lang ~ WDMS ~ 2005