Dragon Hoops
By:
Illustrator: Gene Luen Yang
In his latest graphic novel, Gene Luen Yang turns the spotlight on his life, his family, and the high school where he teaches. Gene doesn’t get sports. But at Bishop O'Dowd High School, it's all anyone can talk about. The men’s varsity basketball team, the Dragons, is having a phenomenal season that’s been decades in the making. Each victory brings them closer to their ultimate goal: the California State Championships. Once Gene gets to know these young all-stars, he realizes that their story is just as thrilling as anything he’s seen on a comic book page. What he doesn’t know yet is that this season is not only going to change the Dragons’ lives, but his own life as well.
ISBN: 9781626720794
JLG Release: Jul 2020
Sensitive Areas:
Sexual Content: Contact Between Adult and Minor
Topics:
Sports
, Basketball
, Boys and men
, High schools
, Basketball teams
, Teachers
, Tournaments
, Courage
, Artistic choices
, Storytelling
, Oakland, California
Awards & Honors
2020 Harvey Award Book of the Year
2021 Michael L. Printz Award Honor Book
Publisher's Weekly Best Young Adult Books of 2020
Praise & Reviews
Starred or favorable reviews have been received from these periodicals:
The Horn Book Magazine*
Horn Book
"I'm just not a sports kind of guy," begins Yang in this comics-format offering that brilliantly combines journalism, memoir, and sports history. Yang, who taught math at Bishop O'Dowd High School in Oakland, California, during the events of the book, provides readers with an inside look at the school's elite basketball team's season as they attemp "I'm just not a sports kind of guy," begins Yang in this comics-format offering that brilliantly combines journalism, memoir, and sports history. Yang, who taught math at Bishop O'Dowd High School in Oakland, California, during the events of the book, provides readers with an inside look at the school's elite basketball team's season as they attempted to win the California State Championship in 2015. Weaving the details of that team's efforts with a primer on the history of basketball, Yang skillfully juggles the stories of multiple players and coaches as well as his own journey from basketball novice to avid fan. In the appended notes, Yang explains his art and narrative choices chapter-by-chapter with page and panel notations, from the sneakers and the hairstyles of the individual players to times when certain conversations happened differently than depicted. While the action on the court is absolutely transfixing (with page layouts often using trapezoid-shaped panels whose diagonal lines amp up the dynamism), the story shines just as brightly off the court when Yang's focus shifts to his owndilemmas and profound insights regarding art and storytelling. Single-season reportage is a popular subgenre of sports writing in the adult publishing world (try In These Girls, Hope Is a Muscle for a basketball classic), and here is a perfect entryway into this form for teen readers. A bibliography is also appended.
Book Details
ISBN
9781626720794
First Release
July 2020
Genre
Nonfic
Dewey Classification
796.323092
Trim Size
8 1/2" x 6"
Page Count
448
Accelerated Reader
Level 3.9; Points: 3;
Scholastic Reading Counts
N/ALexile
N/AFormat
Print Book
Edition
Hardcover edition
Publisher
First Second
Potentially Sensitive Areas
Sexual Content: Contact Between Adult and Minor
Topics
Sports, Basketball, Boys and men, High schools, Basketball teams, Teachers, Tournaments, Courage, Artistic choices, Storytelling, Oakland, California,
