Hoops: A Graphic Novel

by Matt Tavares, Matt Tavares (Illustrator)

Overview

As seen on the Today show

A work of fiction inspired by a true story, Matt Tavares’s debut graphic novel dramatizes the historic struggle for gender equality in high school sports.

It is 1975 in Indiana, and the Wilkins Regional High School girls’ basketball team is in their rookie season. Despite being undefeated, they practice at night in the elementary school and play to empty bleachers. Unlike the boys’ team, the Lady Bears have no buses to deliver them to away games and no uniforms, much less a laundry service. They make their own uniforms out of T-shirts and electrical tape. And with help from a committed female coach, they push through to improbable victory after improbable victory. Illustrated in full color, this story about the ongoing battle of women striving for equality in sports rings with honesty, bravery, and heart.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781536231953
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	03/14/2023
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	22,632
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Matt Tavares is the author-illustrator of the New York Times best-selling picture book Dasher, as well as Red and Lulu and several sports biographies, including Becoming Babe Ruth and Growing Up Pedro. He is also the illustrator of Twenty-One Steps: Guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier by Jeff Gottesfeld, The Gingerbread Pirates by Kristin Kladstrup, 'Twas The Night Before Christmas, and Over the River and Through the Wood, among many other picture books. Matt Tavares lives in Maine.

Editorial Reviews

01/16/2023

Set in the 1970s after the minting of Title IX, this feminist graphic novel, inspired by Indiana basketball player Judi Warren, follows fictional high schooler Judi Wilson, who dreams of scoring the winning basket during a championship game. But there are no girls’ athletics teams at Judi’s high school, so she sets aside her court desires to become a cheerleader. When her school starts a girls’ basketball team, dubbed the Lady Bears, she’s overjoyed to play, but her team faces many challenges, including being required to practice at the elementary school and make their own jerseys. Teammate Lisa points out that the boys’ team suffers none of these indignities, and, together with Judi and another teammate, speaks out. The athletic director tells them, “When you can fill the gym, you can share it” with the boys’ team. Determined to prove themselves, the girls slowly build a winning streak, setting themselves up for success despite their disadvantages. Set against snowy, ambient Midwestern backgrounds peopled by friendly faced characters portrayed with varying skin tones, Tavares (Dasher) gently relays lessons about equality and activism alongside themes of friendship and fitting in, offering an approachable, motivational entry point into Title IX’s effect on sports history. Ages 8–12. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

An inspiring and heartwarming story about a small town high school basketball team . . . that will be adored by readers of all ages.
—Caldecott Medalist Dan Santat

A fast-break story of stout hearts, raw talent, and the will to stand up for what’s right. . . . Hip-hoop-hooray for Hoops!
—Scott Magoon, New York Times best-selling illustrator

Poignant and fresh . . . sure to have readers of all ages wanting to shoot hoops!”
—Jennifer L. Holm, New York Times best-selling cocreator of the Sunny and Babymouse series

From the Publisher

04/21/2023

Gr 6–8—Set in 1975, this graphic novel finds Wilkins High senior Judi setting aside her cheer captain pom-poms to follow her dreams of being a basketball player. Judi tries out in secret, afraid of her best friend's opinion. However, with only eight girls showing up to tryouts, they all make the team. This new team is enthusiastic despite barriers: they have to practice in the elementary school gym and use an RV camper to travel; the head coach reports there wasn't money in the school's budget to support the team equally. Still, the Lady Bears (which one character correctly points out as sexist) rack up victory after victory, advancing to the state championships. By the end of the story, as the Bears travel to play their final winning game, family, friends, and community members have taken notice and support the team. Tavares based this story on the real players of the 1976 Warsaw High School girls' basketball team. Title IX passed into law nearly four years prior, prompting a slow rollout of girls' athletic programs across the U.S. This graphic interpretation of Tavares's research, including interviews with team members, makes for an outstanding historical fiction depiction of this very real struggle. These obstacles could feel like problems of the past if it were not for Tavares's well-constructed dialogue, attention to character dimension, and well-paced storytelling. Tavares draws 1970's denim bellbottoms, feathered hair, and rotary phones with finesse. It is heartening that readers are finally getting more high-quality girl-centered stories from that era. VERDICT This graphic novel depicts Title IX history in a fun and relatable way, giving modern readers a lot to recognize from their current teen experiences.—Jennie Law

School Library Journal

2022-11-29
Girls’ basketball gets off to a rocky start at an Indiana high school in the wake of Title IX.

Basing his debut graphic novel on a true story, Tavares follows a small group of enthusiasts and their resourceful art teacher who moonlights as the girls’ basketball coach, from tryouts that are shuffled off to the elementary school’s gym through dogged practices and hard-fought games all the way to the 1976 state championship. Both the art and the plot are spare and cleanly drawn—the former featuring spacious compositions and easy-to-follow action both on and off the boards. The latter focuses on the friendship that develops between Judi and her teammate Lisa as the Lady Bears (“Why is it always Lady Bears?” a teammate complains, “nobody ever calls the boys’ team the Gentleman Bears”), lacking even jerseys until late in the season and riding to away games in their coach’s uncle’s RV because no bus has been authorized, gradually build a following. They ultimately earn a public apology from the dismissive athletic director and, reuniting during a college break three years later, have the satisfaction of seeing the bleachers in their old high school well filled for a girls’ game. Like the overtly sexist attitudes, which get light but firmly visible exposure, the artist suggests his cast’s racial diversity rather than highlighting it through differences in skin tone and hair texture.

A winning tale, all the more exhilarating for its links to history. (author’s note) (Graphic fiction. 8-12)

Kirkus Reviews