Football Genius by Tim Green
I read this book simply because I heard Tim Green speak at the middle school that I was doing my student teaching. He is a very engaging speaker and the eight graders that I worked with had positive things to say about his talk.
Football Genius is Tim Green’s first book for young adults. It is very well written and keeps the action moving from chapter to chapter. The main character, Troy, is a young man who loves playing football but never gets the chance to because his coach does not put him in any games. Troy is a quarterback and so is the coach’s son, even though Troy is the better player he does not get to play. Troy also has a gift. He can predict any football play before it happens. His Mom gets a job with the Atlanta Falcons and Troy sees that as his chance to help his favorite team get out of the slump that they are in. Troy finds that proving that he can help is not going to be easy. Very few adults will lesson to an eleven-year-old boy.
I read the book in a day but then I read very fast. It is a page turner though which kept me from putting it down. The chapters are just the right length but you read on because you want to discover what happens next. I recommend the book even for people who do not really like football. (I am not a big football fan and can’t even name more then a few football teams.) The characters are written as if they are real people and you care about them. With each turn and twist of the plot, you want to find out if Troy can prove that he is a football genius, save his Mom’s job and help the Falcons win a championship.
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Swindle by Gordon Korman
Swindle is a fun book to read. It is all about Griffin, a Man with a Plan and how he plans to get back a baseball card that he found in a old house back from a collector that tricks into selling the card for a lot less then it is worth. No, it is not a sport story; there are very little sports in the book. It is about the plans that Griffin comes up with to get the card back and the group of kids that he gets to help him. There is a “dog whisperer” that deals with a large Doberman, a up and coming actor that distracts the busybody next door. There are a young lady, whose family are into rock climbing, who helps the kids get into the collector’s house, a bully, who becomes the muscle for the group, and a nerd, who hacks into the collector’s computer. I won’t go into much more detail. I don’t want to spoil the fun!
The ending is somewhat of a surprise but in a good way. Even though there are a lot of problems and troubles that the kids encounter in creating and executing the plan, it works out fine at the end. There is room for the museum and a skate park in the small town.
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To See Every Bird on Earth: A Father, a Son, and a Lifetime Obsession by Dan Koeppel
SUMMARY: Excellent book by a son about his bird watching and listing obsessed father.
I am not really a bird watcher. I have a bird feeder in my back yard and see the birds. I can name some of them. But the author Dan Koeppel’s father is obsessed. I has travelled all over the world seeing and listing over 7000 species of birds. Reading this book kind of makes me want to pay more attention to birds, and see how many different kinds I have in my back yard. But this guy would travel the world, passing by the sights, looking only for birds. There were some interesting sounding birds such as the Monkey Eating Eagle and the Harpy Eagle. Other big listers as they are called are talked about. People who can identify birds simply by thier sounds. They sound like an interesting bunch. I love to travel, and maybe I will pay more attention to birds. But there is no way that I am going to travel halfway around the world JUST to look for birds!
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