Reddit mentions: The best teen & young adult sports fiction books

1. Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher -- or really, almost anything by him. Good, rich characters, facing adversity. He was a family therapist and his writing feels authentic while touching on real issues.
   
   
2. Though everyone talks (rightfully) about The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (bonus: movie coming out, starring the girl from Divergent), Paper Towns is pretty phenomenal, well developed, current, etc. For new fiction, John Green is doing about as good a job as anyone managing the YA / Adult transition, introducing tough topics with good - not intimidating - writing.
   
   
3. Soldier's Heart by Gary Paulsen is short but an amazing look at war from a young kid's perspective. A good compliment to all those fluffy (though enjoyable) we will win the war if i find my boyfriend! books that are so popular....
   
   
4. Also,The Book Thief by Zusak. Because.... for just about every reason.
   
   
5. If you think you are going to have a hard time un-sticking from the fantasy thing - The Night Circus is a creative alternative with better writing than the others.
   
   
6. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime shifted my perspective through shifting the voice -- the main character is autistic. Having this sort of unique narrator was a first & helped teach me about the role of voice (helpful, when your favorite author winds up being Faulkner...)
   
   Of course there are others (non fiction: Krakauer, Hillenbrand, come to mind; deeper: Tim O'Brien, Saramago; more fantastic: Guy Kay, Herbert, etc. ) but, trying to stay within age range / contemporary, and gender neutral... that's where I started! if any of these seem like the right thread, let me know, and i can give you a bucket more.

I've been reading a lot this past week, after some time mostly doing other things...

Lair for Rent by Skyler Grant. Not bad, read if you want more in the Laboratory/Emma-verse.

Mastermind by Steve Kelliher. Great first litterpug, made me add his fantasy series to my backlog of books to read.

Hell's Ascendant by Benjamin Medrano. Great finish to another trilogy. Not litterpug, though Sting and Song qualifies. I recommend reading all of his books.

Orc Pirate by Simon Archer. Not litterpug, read it because I enjoyed Forger of Worlds. Enjoyable, though it is a harem power fantasy.

Tree Guardian by Andrew Karevik. Pretty good, second dungeon core novel following a seed of Yggdrasil.

Skyflare by Aaron Oster. Finally got around to this, it's alright, third book in the Supermage series.

Buryoku by Aaron Oster. Enjoyable cultivation novel, first in a new series. We'll see how it goes.

Manifest by Cody Whitfill. Very enjoyable, some interesting differences from similar novels. Looking forward to the next book.

Last but not least, I'm currently reading Gamer for Love by Daniel Schinhofen. A couple of the Alpha World books were not that enjoyable for me, but it seems like he's back on track and finishing off the series well with this one. I'm glad to see another series end.

It might be from Deadline, by Chris Clutcher.

>
>
>“But God knows, right?”
“Nope again.”
“God doesn’t know how things turn out?”
“It knows that things turn out. Listen, Ben, I could
spend a whole bunch of human time telling you how things
are. But if your doctor’s right, you’ll know soon enough,
okay? Let me satisfy your curiosity for now, and then let’s
stop talking about all this and live your life. God isn’t a guy.
God isn’t a girl. God is a force. You have all these people try-
ing to figure out whether to believe in God or the big bang.
Well, God is the big bang. God is the ultimate scientist. If
God relegated his thinking to human cognition, it would
never get anything done. I mean, look how slow you think,
and you’re probably the smartest kid in your class. Just know
that everything started as one, everything still is one, and it
will end up as one.

​

i had this same idea a few months ago. I ended up buying this book here http://www.amazon.com/Mediocampista-Soccer-Halfback-Christopher-Spanish/dp/0316737712

I don't know how far you are into spanish but on a 1-10 scale, with 10 being a super complex spanish novel and 1 being the simplest book you could imagine, I'd put this around 5ish. I'd say it's just a little too advanced for me because I find myself looking up a lot of words. It is getting easier though, just because this is a young teen book about a soccer player so some words that I originally had to look up, have become repetitive. This book will be slow going at first if you were where i was at, but it gets easier. Plus i got a used copy for a few bucks on ebay, i say give it a shot.

and just for a frame of reference, I'm 24 years old now. I took 3 years of spanish in high school (9th, 10th, 11th grade), then didn't really touch on it or use it until about 2 years ago, I started working at a company with a lot of spanish guys. I try speaking simple stuff with them everyday (though most of our conversations are related to our HVAC field) and have gotten a little better doing this.

Bottom of the 33rd was a very well written look at both the longest game in history as well as the players, ballpark staff, and fans in attendance. It puts the game in perspective.

If you're more into fiction and don't mind diving into a book written for Young Adults Summerland is a very enjoyable read. But it sounds like you would like more baseball in the book.

The Boys of Summer has a great blend of baseball and real life, talking about baseball in the 1930s and 40s and the hearts that broke when the Dodgers (and Giants) moved from New York to California.

Here are some links for the product in the above comment for different countries:

Amazon Smile Link: Deadline


|Country|Link|Charity Links|
|:-----------|:------------|:------------|
|USA|smile.amazon.com|EFF|
|UK|www.amazon.co.uk|Macmillan|
|Spain|www.amazon.es||
|France|www.amazon.fr||
|Germany|www.amazon.de||
|Japan|www.amazon.co.jp||
|Canada|www.amazon.ca||
|Italy|www.amazon.it||
|India|www.amazon.in||
|China|www.amazon.cn||




To help add charity links, please have a look at this thread.

This bot is currently in testing so let me know what you think by voting (or commenting). The thread for feature requests can be found here.

I remember reading this book as part of the American Girl Book club: Bat 6. It's always stuck with me. It's about two girls (12ish or so) who make friends while playing softball. But one of the girls is Japanese and ends up getting sent to an internment camp. Or maybe, she's just gotten out of one? I don't really remember, but it's VERY, VERY good.

It deals with how they just want to be friends, but both sets of adults in each of their lives is saying bad things about the other's race.

EDIT: Now that I think about it, I think it's more about the white girl working through her misgivings about the Japanese girl in the beginning. Guess it's time to reread it!

This is a fun, light-reading, surfing-related YA trilogy.

Would good biographies of wrestlers, surfers, or rappers be of interest?

Maybe it was because I was in high school and could relate to the protagonist more, but I really enjoyed The Berlin Boxing Club. It's a loose backstory to when Max Schmeling saved two Jews during Kristalnacht.

Well, there's always the classic Scrubs on Skates series. Published in the 50s and written by Neil Young's dad Scott.

As for non-fiction, I really liked From the Broadcast Booth by Brian McFarlane. He also has a series profiling the Original Six teams. Link to Leafs one because bias.

This is very similar to the premise of the book "Epic" by Conor Kostick. Quite a fun book, if anyone is interested.

A Summerland movie by Guillermo del Toro would be pretty neat.

There's a fictional book called Boy Toy about one that's pretty good.

I knew this from The Berlin Boxing Club! This book was a great read and I highly suggest it. You won't regret the decision.

Swim the Fly and its sequels. They are absolutely awesome.

Dirt Bikes, Drones, and Other Ways To Fly

https://www.amazon.com/Dirt-Bikes-Drones-Other-Ways/dp/0544232690

was 16 when I read it so im not sure how it holds up but probably is fine for adults (its YA novel so, idk how old you are lol) amazon puts it at 4.7/5

That may have been the one called "The Fear Street Saga" trilogy

Book 1 - The Betrayal

Book 2 - The Secret

Book 3 - The Burning

I always liked the stand alone books like The Cheater or The Wrong Number and the Super Chillers because they were extra long. My favorite was probably Silent Night. I also liked the 99 Fear Street Series or all the books in the Fear Street Cheerleaders series.

When I was in 6th grade, one time the Scholastic book order had this monthly club you could sign up for. Every month they would send you 2 Fear Street books and some other Fear Street/R.L. Stine merchandise like stickers, buttons, or bookmarks, things like that. When I first started, it was great. They would send me the latest one that just came out that month and one of the previous older ones. I did this for a really long time, many many months and built up quite a collection of Fear Street books. However, I think they started running out of books to send me because it ended up becoming they would send me the latest Fear Street and then some other "horror" novel, like non-Fear Street R.L. Stine books, a Christopher Pike book or something like Twins by Caroline B. Cooney. I had so many of these books I was like my own library. After awhile though, the books they were sending got shittier and shittier and they were sending me stuff like some Ichabod Crane/Sleepy Hallow type book and I ended up stopping the monthly book club. Then, a few years later, my mother sold most of them at a yard sale. Now I'm really wishing she had kept them, I would have taken them back. Which is why, I bought a bunch of them again! Now I want to go read a Fear Street book...

The book is called Wildball, it’s a young adult novel about a guy playing in a summer baseball league and how he deals with some traumatic memories and navigates his new relationships. You can buy it here if you are extra curious! Thx Coldplay

Depends on your level, I'm about a B2 and I read this one and it was easy enough. If your local bookstore has a spanish section I would just browse the various age ranges until you find one that's not too difficult (or easy).

I remember reading this book years ago as a kid, around the same age as Hatchet I guess. Called, Banner in the sky. And the author of hatchet has a sequel called The River if you liked it.

http://www.amazon.com/Banner-Sky-James-Ramsey-Ullman/dp/0064470482

They already have a book out about him!
[A Boy At The Leaf's Camp] (https://www.amazon.ca/Boy-at-Leafs-Camp/dp/0771090900)

Deadline