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The sequel to the #1 New York Timesbestseller Travel Team! When you ’re the smallest kid playing a big man’s game, the challenges never stop—especially when your name is Danny Walker. Leading your travel team to the national championship may seem like a dream come true, but for Danny, being at the top just means the competition tries that much harder to knock him off. Now Danny’s heading to Right Way basketball camp for the summer, and he knows that with the country’s best players in attendance, he’s going to need to take his game up a notch if he wants to match up. But it won’t be easy. Old rivals and new battles leave Danny wondering if he really does have what it takes to stand tall.
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At the age of 23, Mike Lupica began his newspaper career covering the New York Knicks for the New York Post. In 1977, he became the youngest columnist ever at a New York newspaper when he started working for the New York Daily News. He has also written for numerous magazines during his career including Golf Digest, Playboy, Sports Illustrated, ESPN: The Magazine, Men's Journal and Parade. In 2003, he received the Jim Murray Award from the National Football Foundation. He has been a television anchor for ESPN's The Sports Reporters and hosted his own program The Mike Lupica Show on ESPN2. <p> He has written both fiction and non-fiction books. His novels include Dead Air; Limited Partner; Jump; Full Court Press; Red Zone; Too Far; Wild Pitch; and Bump and Run. He also writes the Mike Lupica's Comeback Kids series. He co-wrote autobiographies with Reggie Jackson and Bill Parcells and collaborated with William Goldman on Wait Till Next Year. His other non-fiction works include The Summer of '98; Mad as Hell: How Sports Got Away from the Fans and How We Get It Back; and Shooting from the Lip. <p> (Bowker Author Biography)
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Gr 5-8-This novel continues the story of Danny Walker, the basketball-obsessed hero of Travel Team (Philomel, 2004). In the interval between the two books, the 13-year-old and his friends went on to win the travel-team championship. Now that they are heading off to summer basketball camp, Danny is feeling the pressure of being number one. He plays as well as ever, but he's still the smallest boy on the court and anxiously hoping for a growth spurt. As the story begins, things quickly go wrong for him. He fights with his girlfriend before he leaves; at camp, he's separated from his friends and assigned a berth in the younger boys' cabin. There are many familiar elements and few surprises here, yet Lupica breathes life into both characters and story. Danny is a classic sports-story underdog, but he's also sympathetic and engaging. He is surrounded by a cast of supporting characters who add humor and whose interactions ring true. When Danny befriends Zach, who is a younger version of himself, readers see the protagonist grow in empathy and self-awareness. Sports fans will relish the on-court action, expertly rendered in Lupica's taut prose. This worthy sequel to Travel Team should earn a wide audience.-Marilyn Taniguchi, Beverly Hills Public Library, CA Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.
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Danny, first introduced in Travel Team (a novel with "genuinely affecting moments," wrote PW), is back in Summer Ball by Mike Lupica. This time the teen heads out of town to spend the summer at Right Way basketball camp where he will have to play with-and against-some of the best ballers around. Faced with challenges old and new, Danny must overcome his doubts and fears to find out if he has what it takes to bring his game to the next level. (Philomel, $17.99 256p ages 10-up ISBN 9780-399-24487-2; May) Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.
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Danny Walker is back in this sequel to Travel Team (2004). This installment takes Danny to a summer basketball camp, where the scrappy hero faces some of the country's best players in his age group. Early on, Danny finds himself spending a lot of time on the bench because his coach (a retired college coach) determines that he is too short for the game. Danny suspects, however, that the coach's antagonism may have more to do with an old grudge the coach holds against Danny's dad, a former basketball star. Eventually, though, Danny's tough-minded determination wins the day as he helps lead his team to victory. Lupica is at his best when he puts the reader right in the center of the action on the court. His game descriptions are fast, accurate, and exciting. Young sports-fiction fans will eat this up. --Todd Morning Copyright 2007 Booklist
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