Book picks similar to
Backfield Package by Thomas J. Dygard


sports
character-and-values
school-library
teen-reads

Red Army General


Tony O'Neill - 2004
    Thousands strong, this huge tribe of disaffected youths laid siege to town centrees and soccer grounds across the country and became a byword for violent disorder. Tony O'Neill was there from the beginning and became its most prominent face.Barely in his teens when he set out from the largest council estate in Europe to follow the Red Devils, his ferocity in street combat and his force of personality soon made him a leader. Running trips in his infamous War Wagon, he became so renowned that he was invited to a sit-down meeting with the Government to discuss the hooligan problem.After serving a jail term, O'Neill emerged to lead the 'casuals' of the 1980s against an even tougher generation of opponents: West Ham's ICF, the Chelsea Headhunters, the Leeds Service Crew and the scally armies of Merseyside. Police intelligence files labelled him a 'prime mover' and he became the target of a huge undercover investigation. Red Army General is the most authoritative account ever written of the wild years when terrace terror reached its peak."BRITAIN'S No.1 FOOTBALL THUG" Daily Mirror"BRITAIN'S WORST SOCCER YOB" The Sun

The Maze Runner: by James Dashner | Summary & Analysis (The Maze Runner Series, Book 1)


Book*Sense - 2014
    Award-winning author James Dashner’s The Maze Runner shows the influences of the author’s broad reading. It relates the story of the amnesiac Thomas as he is forced into the near-bucolic setting of the Glade, learns to navigate it and the labyrinthine Maze surrounding it and leads the people of the Glade from their bounded world into a broader outside world. It also presents a perspective on adolescence well worth discussing which this Analysis covers every detail that you would otherwise miss. The Maze Runner has features that recommend it for both adolescent readers and those who teach them which this Summary & Analysis helps to decipher increasing your understanding of the book more than ever. The former will find the dialogue and action engaging without neglect of character development. The latter will find a text that manages to play with the tropes of Golding’s Lord of the Flies (which Dashner reports as a direct influence on the book), offering a way to introduce that text and a venue for discussion of it. They present opportunities for readers to engage with underlying assumptions and attitudes, offering the chance for readers to understand themselves, the culture in which they live and the culture in which the writer writes which this Analysis covers. Each is a chance to better understand the world, and The Maze Runner does well to make such chances available. The book is well worth reading, both for its intended audience of young adults (inside and outside the classroom) and for a more general reading public. This Analysis of The Maze Runner fills the gap, making you understand more while enhancing your reading experience.

Premonitions: Book 2: War


Diana E. Anderson - 2018
    Please search Amazon ASIN: B07G28TKXC for Book 1 of this series. Thank you. Denise Armstrong and her family and friends were prepared to survive the economic collapse of the United States. Their preparations got them through a brutal winter and an attack by renegade thugs. Will their preparations help them survive the inevitable war that has come to the United States?

One Fake Fiancé (Romeo Family Romance Book 8)


Jennifer Youngblood - 2020
    She needs a fiancé pronto. Can the cowboy and the debutante find common ground? Or will their shot at happily-ever-after get stomped to smithereens before it even has a chance to begin?Lucas Romeo has no time for love. He’s been down that road before, and it didn’t end well. When his sister Lexi fixes him up on a blind date with her friend Magnolia, things take a disastrous turn. Lucas has no intention of ever going out with Magnolia again—not if she were the last woman on earth. Forget that she’s stunningly beautiful. She’s also spoiled and entitled, the kind of woman who wouldn’t last a day on a ranch.Then, Magnolia makes Lucas a deal he can’t refuse …

Striking Out


Will Weaver - 1900
    Never been to a movie. Never played baseball with a real team. Never got over feeling guilty for the loss of his brother. But change is in the air. Billy discovers he has a natural talent for baseball, especially as a pitcher. Maybe, just maybe, there's more in store for him than life on the farm. But can Billy convince his father of that? Or is he destined to spend the rest of his life pitching nothing but hay?Teenager Billy Baggs is desperately needed on his family's struggling dairy farm, but he's also an extraordinarily gifted natural baseball player. How he struggles to reconcile his father's desire to keep him on the farm with his coach's interest in getting him on the field is at the heart of this ‘meaty story.… The complex characters grow and change in profoundly real ways.''K. ‘[With] flashes of humor, a wealth of lovingly recounted details evokes the difficult daily life on a small dairy farm.''Publishers Weekly. 1994 Best Books for Young Adults (ALA)1994 Books for the Teen Age (NY Public Library)1993 "Pick of the Lists" (ABA)

The Vermilion Strain : Post-Apocalyptic Extinction


S.A. Ison - 2019
    It is a contagion so virulent, that it has caused an extinction level event. None of them have seen humans for weeks, and no one is coming to help them. They must each find the courage to carve out a new life in a new reality, a new world. They must learn new skills and face challenges that they never bargained for. What is out there, awaiting them? Will the human species blink out of existence? Each day is a gamble, a stratagem of life and death.

Touchdown Pass


Clair Bee - 1948
    Now, today's youth can follow the adventures of Chip Hilton, the sports-loving hero who will capture their hearts and direct them toward developing solid character, lasting values, and keen athletic skills.

Dragon Ball Z, Vol. 1: The World's Greatest Team (SJ Edition; Dragon Ball Z, #1)


Akira Toriyama - 2011
    Five years after defeating the demon king Piccolo, he's grown up and had a family--he's married, and he has a child, Son Gohan. But what is the real reason for Goku's incredible strength? A visitor from outer space arrives bearing terrible news--Goku is an alien, and the visitor, Raditz, is Goku's brother! When Raditz turns out to be a ruthless killer, Goku must fight his incredibly strong brother to save his family and the entire human race. A surprising alliance may be Earth's last hope: Goku will team up with his old enemy Piccolo...archenemies united to save the world!

It Hit The Fan: Piney River Apocalypse


John Sullins - 2019
    When a Missouri school teacher is fired from his job, he heads to a small river to get away from his problems and the virus. It might be the best decision he ever made.

Don't Abandon the Superstar (Strong Family Romances #8)


Cami Checketts - 2020
    When their mixed luck crosses paths, life will never be the same. Is love at first sight possible? Austin Strong didn’t believe it, until Kate Joy met his gaze, and he crashed into a glass wall. Life would never be the same for the irresistible charmer of the Strong family, and he doesn’t want it to be. Forget his hundred and twenty-six other girlfriends. He only needs one. Don’t miss the surprising, romantic, and heartbreaking Strong Family finale as Austin meets his match with no way of knowing if he can win the one heart he truly wants. 1. Don’t Date Your Brother’s Best Friend - Ella Strong 2. Her Loyal Protector 3. Don’t Fall for a Fugitive - Heath Strong 4. Don’t Ditch a Detective - Cassie Strong 5. Don't Miss the Moment - Gavin Strong 6. Don't Love an Army Ranger - Nick Strong 7. Don't Chase a Player - Stetson Strong 8. Don't Abandon the Superstar - Austin Strong Try out Cami's newest series: The Jewel Family: Do Marry Your Billionaire Boss

Shut In


Nathan Jones - 2019
     Ellie Feldman is on the way home from a business trip, looking forward to seeing her kids, when her plane is grounded on the tarmac in Hawaii. No one wants to tell her what's going on, until finally she learns of the virulent disease spreading over the globe. Now she has to find a way to get home to her family. Back at home her ex-husband, Nick Statton, thinks his problems revolve around financial hardships and helping their children as they continue to adjust to the recent divorce and going from parent to parent with shared custody. Then he discovers there's something far worse to worry about. As the nation descends into chaos around them, she must face the challenges of being out in a society falling apart, while he and their children face those of being shut in.

Football Nightmare


Matt Christopher - 2001
    The game-winning, undefeated-record-making pass that would have made him a hero instead of a loser. Now, a year later, that missed pass still haunts him, so much so that he's considering quitting football for good. His friends and family finally convince him to stick with it, but Keith's troubles are far from over. Another player is out for his position and seems determined to do everything he can to keep the dropped pass memory alive in the minds of the whole team - including Keith. Can Keith overcome his own obsession with the past and succeed in the present?

Things I've Learned from Watching the Browns


Terry Pluto - 2010
    In his latest tome, he bares his chest about why C-Town's football faithful can't give up on their hometown favorites. (P.S. Not to rub it in, but over the last seven seasons, the Brownies record has been 38-74. Now that's true fan love.)

Where Dreams Die Hard: A Small American Town and Its Six-Man Football Team


Carlton Stowers - 2005
    Here, where shopping for groceries is a forty-five-minute round-trip drive and there is no stoplight on Main Street, he followed the hapless Penelope Wolverines in their quest to win their second game in four years since reviving their football program after a thirty-seven-year hiatus. But even as the team struggled, the entire town still came out to show its support every Friday night. Why? Because as one Texas writer recently said, "Texas high school football is a six-point favorite over Sunday-go-to-meetin' in most small towns." A wide-open game in which teams sprint up and down the field and where the combined score can typically exceed one hundred points, six-man football was invented in Nebraska in 1934. At its peak in 1953, 30,000 teams across the country and in Canada competed in the sport. Though there are fewer teams now, it is still played in states as far flung as Texas, New Mexico, Montana, Colorado, and Kansas, among others. A poignant story of a small town, and its unwavering support-through thick and a lot of thin-of the winless Wolverines, Where Dreams Die Hard is a warm and revealing slice of life in the American heartland and of a culture fast disappearing.

We All Live In a Perry Groves World: My Story


Perry Groves - 2006
    Perry Groves spent over a decade in the footballing spotlight. Sometimes he was at the top, often he was at the bottom and that's half the reason the fans loved him so much--and still do. This is the most truthful and hilarious book about professional football you will ever read. Perry Groves was the first signing by the legendary Arsenal manager George Graham, and that unmistakeable figure with his Tin-Tin haircut and cheeky grin was a player in one of the Gunners' greatest sides. Now he has decided to tell all about his rollercoaster years of booze binges, girl-chasing and gambling sprees. He's a nonstop fund of of hilarious anecdotes, recounting top-flight games played with a hangover, 125 mph motorway chases with international stars, visits to a brothel with an England World Cup hero and revealing how one drunken escapade ended with a group of internationals beting questioned over an attempted murder charge. This is a unique chance to find out what top-flight footballers really get up to off the field and how they behave when the dressing room door is closed.