Pull

by Kevin Waltman

Overview

D-Bow is a Junior now. He can taste a State Championship, but he pulls his knee after a thunderous dunk.

Junior year. Derrick Bowen has put in two good years getting ready for this season. He put in the work and earned his coach's trust and his role as the starting point guard for Marion East. Marion has never won the Indiana state championship, but this year the team is Derrick's. And Derrick is good. Opponents worry when Derrick—D-Bow when he's pounding the rock—steps onto the court. Major colleges work feverishly to recruit him. Derrick is ready to run teams off the court.

If only he could get on the court and stay on it.

Old school coach Bolden suspends Derrick for the first game of the season after Derrick's best friend Wes gets busted for carrying a joint while in Derrick's car. Even after that, Marion High's team just doesn't quite click. They don't want to follow Derrick's lead as squad's dominant player. Dissension and selfishness are threatening to tear the team apart. And then Derrick hears a sickening snap as he lands awkwardly after a thunderous dunk.

Can Derrick lead the team to victory from the bench?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781941026267
Publisher:	Lee & Low Books
Publication date:	02/02/2016
Series:	D-Bow High School Hoops Series
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.10(d)
Lexile:	HL680L (what's this?)
Age Range:	14 - 18 Years

About the Author

Kevin Waltman is an instructor at The University of Alabama. He lives in Coker with his wife Jessica, their daughter Calla, and their dog Henry. His first young adult novel, Nowhere Fast, was published by Scholastic in 2002, and his second, Learning the Game, was published by Scholastic in 2005.

Editorial Reviews

"Readers who have followed D-Bow through his first two years at Marion East will find themselves slipping effortlessly back into his life, his candid, present-tense narration comfortably familiar. . . . [Kevin] Waltman continues to keep it both real and fresh for D-Bow." — Kirkus Reviews

"Derrick's first-person narration is strong and distinctive, and the teen-speak and basketball vernacular make the numerous sporting sequences exciting to read. . . . A strong cast of secondary characters alternately support or sabotage Derrick as he tries to avoid the pitfalls of inner-city life and the mistakes he's seen peers and family members make." — Booklist

From the Publisher

2015-07-15
It's junior year, and Division I schools are lining up to stake their claims to Indianapolis b-ball phenom Derrick Bowen. D-Bow is certainly older and a little bit wiser than in his first two outings, Next (2013) and Slump (2014). He begins this year without irrepressible teammate Moose, now graduated, and beautiful and brilliant Jasmine is growing ever distant, eyes on her prize. Best friend Wes, too, is pulling away, hanging with bangers and blazing up, and little brother Jayson is withdrawing. On the bright side, there's the fiine Lia Stone, in whom D-Bow might find a balanced relationship. Readers who have followed D-Bow through his first two years at Marion East will find themselves slipping effortlessly back into his life, his candid, present-tense narration comfortably familiar. Punctuating the now-typical rhythms of his basketball season—tension with gruff coach Bolden, the realignment of the starting five with the new year, D-Bow's increasing responsibilities as a team leader, and, of course, lovingly described hoops action—are the letters and phone calls from college coaches eager to sign D-Bow's unquestioned talent. Though Waltman has given his protagonist enormous advantages, he doesn't make life easy on him; D-Bow's success is not assured, and both he and readers finish the year genuinely wondering if high-level college ball is really in his future. Waltman continues to keep it both real and fresh for D-Bow. (Fiction. 14-18)

Kirkus Reviews