Travel Team - by Mike Lupica

This is a GREAT book!  Whether you love basketball or any sport, or if you're a total couch potato, this is a story that will grab your interest and not let go until the last page, when you'll wipe a tear from your eye and say, "Write another one just like that, Mr. Lupica!"  What's so great about it?  First of all, it's the story of an underdog, which everyone loves.  The short kids all got cut from their seventh-grade basketball team, and they form their own team and join the league.  Mr. Perfect's dad coaches the first team, and the shortest kid's no-good dad appears from nowhere to coach the second team.  It's excellent sports writing, great emotional writing about friends, families, and enemies, and is full of examples that you can't always judge people by their past, because they may have more to them than you think. 

Mike Lupica is a sports writer for magazines and newspapers, and has turned himself into a top-quality children's fiction author.  If you like Dan Gutman's writing, you'll like this even more.  Trust me, and check out Travel Team for yourself.  Warning: You might want to have a basketball handy, because this story will make you want to put the book down and shoot a few hoops between chapters.