REALITY CHECK
by Peter Abrahams
After a knee injury destroys sixteen-year-old Cody's college hopes, he drops out of high school and gets a job in his small Montana town, but when his ex-girlfriend disappears from her Vermont boarding school, Cody travels cross-country to join the search.

PICK-UP GAME: A FULL DAY OF FULL COURT
edited by Marc Aronson and Charles R. Smith Jr.
A series of short stories provides different perspectives on a game of streetball played one steamy July day at the West 4th Street court in New York City known as The Cage.

TANGERINE
by Edward Bloor
Twelve-year-old Paul, who lives in the shadow of his football hero brother Erik, fights for the right to play soccer despite his near blindness and slowly begins to remember the incident that damaged his eyesight.

OPEN COURT
by Carol Clippinger
A thirteen-year-old tennis prodigy grapples with her seemingly incompatible desires to be an exceptional athlete and a normal teenager.

ATHLETIC SHORTS: SIX SHORT STORIES
by Chris Crutcher
As with all Crutcher's work, these are stories about athletes, and yet they are not sport stories. They are tales of love and death, bigotry and heroism, of real people doing their best even when that best isn't very good.

GYM CANDY
by Carl Deuker
Groomed by his father to be a star player, football is the only thing that has ever really mattered to Mick Johnson, who works hard for a spot on the varsity team his freshman year, then tries to hold onto his edge by using steroids, despite the consequences to his health and social life.

THE RIVALRY: MYSTERY AT THE ARMY-NAVY GAME
by John Feinstein
Eighth-grade sportswriters Stevie and Susan Carol up to solve a mystery at the famous Army-Navy football game.

SHUTOUT
by Brendan Halpin
Fourteen-year-old Amanda and her best friend Lena start high school looking forward to playing on the varsity soccer team, but when Lena makes varsity and Amanda only makes junior varsity, their long friendship rapidly changes.

RASH
by Pete Hautman
In a future society that has decided it would "rather be safe than free," sixteen-year-old Bo's anger management problems land him in a tundra jail where he survives with the help of his running skills and an artificial intelligence program named Bork.

GO BIG OR GO HOME
by Will Hobbs
Fourteen-year-old Brady and his cousin Quinn love extreme sports, but nothing could prepare them for the aftermath of Brady's close encounter with a meteorite after it crashes into his Black Hills, South Dakota, bedroom.

SWOLLEN
by Melissa Lion
A teenaged girl copes with the death of a star track and field athlete by running.

CENTER FIELD
by Robert Lipsyte
Mike lives for baseball and hopes to follow his idol into the major leagues one day, but he is distracted by a new player who might take his place in center field, an ankle injury, problems at home, and a growing awareness that something sinister is happening at school.

THE BAT BOY
by Mike Lupica
Even though his mother feels baseball ruined her marriage to his father, she allows fourteen-year-old Brian to become a bat boy for the Detroit Tigers, who have just drafted his favorite player back onto the team.

THE BIG FIELD
by Mike Lupica
When fourteen-year-old baseball player Hutch feels threatened by the arrival of a new teammate named Darryl, he tries to work through his insecurities about both Darryl and his remote and silent father, who was once a great ballplayer too.

HEAT
by Mike Lupica
Pitching prodigy Michael Arroyo is on the run from social services after being banned from playing Little League baseball because rival coaches doubt he is only twelve years old and he has no parents to offer them proof.

MILLION DOLLAR THROW
by Mike Lupica
Eighth-grade star quarterback Nate Brodie's family is feeling the stress of the troubled economy, and Nate is frantic because his best friend Abby is going blind, so when he gets a chance to win a million dollars if he can complete a pass during the halftime of a New England Patriot's game, he is nearly overwhelmed by the pressure to succeed.

MIRACLE ON 49TH STREET
by Mike Lupica
After her mother's death, twelve-year-old Molly learns that her father is a basketball star for the Boston Celtics.

SUMMER BALL
by Mike Lupica
Thirteen-year-old Danny must prove himself all over again for a disapproving coach and against new rivals at a summer basketball camp.

THE UNDERDOGS
by Mike Lupica
Small but fast twelve-year-old Will Tyler, an avid football player in the down-and-out town of Forbes, Pennsylvania, takes matters into his own hands to try and finance the city's football team, giving the whole community hope in the process.

BOOST
by Kathryn Mackel
Thirteen-year-old Savvy's dreams of starting for her elite basketball team are in danger when she is accused of taking steroids.

SLAM!
by Walter Dean Myers
Sixteen-year-old "Slam" Harris is counting on his noteworthy basketball talents to get him out of the inner city and give him a chance to succeed in life, but his coach sees things differently.

GAME
by Walter Dean Myers
If Harlem high school senior Drew Lawson is going to realize his dream of playing college, then professional, basketball, he will have to improve at being coached and being a team player, especially after a new – white – student threatens to take the scouts' attention away from him.

KICK
by Walter Dean Myers
Told in their separate voices, thirteen-year-old soccer star Kevin and police sergeant Brown, who knew his father, try to keep Kevin out of juvenile hall after he is arrested on very serious charges.

JERSEY TOMATOES ARE THE BEST
by Maria Padian
When fifteen-year-old best friends Henry and Eve leave New Jersey, one for tennis camp in Florida and one for ballet camp in New York, each faces challenges that put her long-cherished dreams of the future to the test.

THE PENALTY
by Mal Peet
Paul Faustino, known as the best soccer journalist in the business, reluctantly investigates the disappearance of eighteen-year-old Ricardo, a soccer prodigy known as "El Brujito," while in alternate chapters a slave in old San Juan becomes a powerful voodoo priest.

BALL DON'T LIE
by Matt de la Peña
Seventeen-year-old Sticky lives to play basketball at school and at Lincoln Rec Center in Los Angeles and is headed for the pros, but he is unaware of the many dangers–including his own past–that threaten his dream.

MEXICAN WHITEBOY
by Matt de la Peña
Sixteen-year-old Danny searches for his identity amidst the confusion of being half-Mexican and half-white while spending a summer with his cousin and new friends on the baseball fields and back alleys of San Diego County, California.

AMAZING GRACE
by Megan Shull
Tennis has a new "it" girl and her name is Grace Kincaid. The only problem is Grace has suddenly realized that being a teen sensation isn't all it's cracked up to be. With fame and fortune just a backswing away, all she really wants is to be normal!

CRUISE CONTROL
by Terry Trueman
A talented basketball player struggles to deal with the helplessness and anger that come with having a brother rendered completely dysfunctional by severe cerebral palsy and a father who deserted the family.

7 DAYS AT THE HOT CORNER
by Terry Trueman
Varsity baseball player Scott Latimer struggles with his own prejudices and those of others when his best friend reveals that he is gay.

HARD HIT
by Ann Turner
A rising high school baseball star faces his most difficult challenge when his father is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

THE RUNNING DREAM
by Wendelin Van Draanen
When a school bus accident leaves sixteen-year-old Jessica an amputee, she returns to school with a prosthetic limb and her track team finds a wonderful way to help rekindle her dream of running again.

FOOD, GIRLS, AND OTHER THINGS I CAN'T HAVE
by Allen Zadoff
Fifteen-year-old Andrew Zansky, the second fattest student at his high school, joins the varsity football team to get the attention of a new girl on whom he has a crush.

SERIES

CROSS GAME GRAPHIC NOVEL SERIES
VOLUME ONE
by Mitsuru Adachi
This series centers around a boy named Ko, the family of four sisters who live down the street and the game of baseball. This poignant coming-of-age story will change your perception of what shonen-manga can be.

WHISTLE! GRAPHIC NOVEL SERIES
VOLUME ONE: BREAK THROUGH
by Daisuke Higuchi
At a new school, Shoc is mistakenly introduced to everyone as a hotshot football player. When the truth is revealed, he drops out of school to practice on his own. Alone, he must work twice as hard to make his dreams come true.

SLAM DUNK GRAPHIC NOVEL SERIES
VOLUME ONE: SAKURAGI
by Takehiko Inoue
Hanamichi Sakuragi's got no game with girls – none at all! It doesn't help that he's known for throwing down at a moment's notice and always coming out on top. A hopeless bruiser, he's been rejected by 50 girls in a row! All that changes when he meets the girl of his dreams, Haruko, and she's actually not afraid of him! When she introduces him to the game of basketball, his life is changed forever.

DAIRY QUEEN TRILOGY
BOOK ONE: DAIRY QUEEN
by Catherine Gilbert Murdock
After spending her summer running the family farm and training the quarterback for her school's rival football team, sixteen-year-old D.J. decides to go out for the sport herself, not anticipating the reactions of those around her.

HANA KIMI: FOR YOU IN FULL BLOSSOM GRAPHIC NOVEL SERIES
VOLUME ONE
by Hisaya Nakajo
Japanese-American track-and-field star Mizuki has gotten herself a transfer to a high school in Japan. To be close to her idol high jumper, Izumi Sano, she's going to an all-guys school and disguising herself as a boy!

GOAL TRILOGY
BOOK ONE: GOAL! THE DREAM BEGINS
by Robert Rigby
Santiago, a young Mexican American, fulfills his dream of playing soccer when a chance encounter in inner-city Los Angeles results in a trip to England to try out for the Newcastle United soccer team.

INITIAL D. GRAPHIC NOVEL SERIES
VOLUME ONE
by Shuichi Shigeno
Delivery boy Tak unexpectedly discovers that the skills he has acquired on the treacherous mountain roads of Mt. Akina have made him a street racing master. Urged on by friends and driving a rundown Toyota, he shames the best racers in town. But, Tak discovers there's more to life, and to himself, than he thought.

SURVIVING SOUTHSIDE SERIES
BOOK ONE: RECRUITED
by Suzanne Weyn
Kadeem Jones is a star quarterback for Southside High. He is thrilled when college scouts seek him out. His visit to Teller College is amazing, but then NCAA officials accuse Teller's staff of illegally recruiting top talent. Will Kadeem decide to help their investigation, even though it means the end of the good times? What will it do to his chances of playing college football?