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Twelve Mighty Orphans: The Inspiring True Story of the Mighty Mites Who Ruled Texas Football
Jim Dent · back to the book
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorThe Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics
Daniel James Brown · 416 pages
Daniel James Brown’s robust book tells the story of the University of Washington’s 1936 eight-oar crew and their epic quest for an Olympic gold medal, a team that transformed the sport and grabbed the attention of millions of Americans. The sons of loggers, shipyard workers, and farmers, the boys defeated elite rivals first from eastern and British universities and finally the German crew rowing f
The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game
Michael Lewis · 345 pages
Follows one young man from his impoverished childhood with a crack-addicted mother, through his discovery of the sport of football, to his rise to become one of the most successful, highly-paid players in the NFL.
One Shot at Forever: A Small Town, an Unlikely Coach, and a Magical Baseball Season
Chris Ballard · 271 pages
viii, 254 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, map ; 25 cm1000L Lexile
The Boys of Winter: The Untold Story of a Coach, a Dream, and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team
Wayne Coffey · 288 pages
Once upon a time, they taught us to believe. They were the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team, a blue-collar bunch led by an unconventional coach, and they engineered perhaps the greatest sports moment of the twentieth century. Their "Miracle on Ice" has become a national fairy tale, but the real Cinderella story is even more remarkable. It is a legacy of hope, hard work, and homegrown triumph. It is a
Seabiscuit: An American Legend
Laura Hillenbrand · 453 pages
Retraces the journey of Seabiscuit, a horse with crooked legs and a pathetic tail that made racing history in 1938, thanks to the efforts of a trainer, owner, and jockey who transformed a bottom-level racehorse into a legend.
The Eighty-Dollar Champion: Snowman, the Horse That Inspired a Nation
Elizabeth Letts · 272 pages
"The Eighty-Dollar Champion tells the dramatic odyssey of a horse called Snowman, saved from the slaughterhouse by a young Dutch farmer named Harry. Together, Harry and Snowman went on to become America's show-jumping champions, winning first prize in Madison Square Garden. Set in the mid- to late-1950s, this book captures the can-do spirit of a Cold War immigrant who believed--and triumphed"--Pro
Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team
Steve Sheinkin · 288 pages
An astonishing underdog sports story and more. It's an unflinching look at the US government's violent persecution of Native Americans and the school that was designed to erase Indian cultures. Native American Jim Thorpe became a super athlete and Olympic gold medalist. Indomitable coach Pop Warner was a football mastermind. In 1907 at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, they
Invictus: Nelson Mandela and the Game that made a Nation
John Carlin · 288 pages
Soon to be a major motion picture from Academy Award(r)—winning director Clint Eastwood, starring Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman. After being released from prison and winning South Africa's first free election, Nelson Mandela presided over a country still deeply divided by fifty years of apartheid. His plan was ambitious if not far-fetched: Use the national rugby team, the Springboks-long an embodi
Brothers at Bat: The True Story of an Amazing All-Brother Baseball Team
Audrey Vernick · 39 pages
Documents the story of the Baseball Hall of Fame honorees, tracing how the Acerra family of New Jersey formed their own semi-pro baseball team in the 1930s and became the longest-running all-brother team in history.
A Little Princess
Frances Hodgson Burnett · 224 pages
This is a story about a different kind of princess than one might imagine; a princess that is an orphan - lonely, cold, hungry and abused. Sara Crewe begins life as the beloved, pampered daughter of a rich man. When he dies a pauper, she is thrown on the non-existent mercy of her small-minded, mercenary boarding school mistress. Stripped of all her belongings but for one set of clothes and a doll,
A Single Shard
Linda Sue Park · 152 pages
In this Newbery Medal-winning book set in 12th century Korea, Tree-ear, a 13-year-old orphan, lives under a bridge in Ch’ulp’o, a potters' village famed for delicate celadon ware. He has become fascinated with the potter’s craft; he wants nothing more than to watch master potter Min at work, and he dreams of making a pot of his own someday. When Min takes Tree-ear on as his helper, Tree-ear is ela
The Power of One
Bryce Courtenay · 518 pages
Follows Peekay, a white British boy in South Africa during World War II, between the ages of five and eleven, as he survives an abusive boarding school and goes on to succeed in life and the boxing ring, with help from a chicken, a boxer, a pianist, black African prisoners, and many others.
True: The Four Seasons of Jackie Robinson
Kostya Kennedy
True is a probing, richly-detailed, unique biography of Jackie Robinson, one of baseball's—and America's—most significant figures. For players, fans, managers, and executives, Jackie Robinson remains baseball’s singular figure, the person who most profoundly extended, and continues to extend, the reach of the game. Beyond Ruth. Beyond Clemente. Beyond Aaron. Beyond the heroes of today. Now, a half
Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen
Christopher McDougall · 287 pages
Full of incredible characters, amazing athletic achievements, cutting-edge science, and, most of all, pure inspiration, Born to Run is an epic adventure that began with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt? In search of an answer, Christopher McDougall sets off to find a tribe of the world's greatest distance runners and learn their secrets, and in the process shows us that everything we tho
Road to Valor: A True Story of WWII Italy, the Nazis, and the Cyclist Who Inspired a Nation
Aili McConnon, Andres McConnon · 336 pages
Road to Valor is the inspiring, against-the-odds story of Gino Bartali, the cyclist who made the greatest comeback in Tour de France history and secretly aided the Italian resistance during World War II.
Drive: The Story of My Life
Larry Bird, Bob Ryan · 259 pages
Shooting Stars
LeBron James, H.G. Bissinger · 258 pages
From the ultimate team— basketball superstar LeBron James and Buzz Bissinger, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Friday Night Lights and Three Nights in August—a poignant, thrilling tale of the power of teamwork to transform young lives, including James's own.The Shooting Stars were a bunch of kids—LeBron James and his best friends—from Akron, Ohio, who first met on a youth basketball team of the sa
The Match: The Day the Game of Golf Changed Forever
Mark Frost · 272 pages
Eddie Lowery left his first imprint on the game of golf in 1913 as the 10-year-old caddie to underdog U.S. Open champion Francis Ouimet. Best-selling author Mark Frost continues Lowery's story 43 years later with Lowery as a multi-millionaire car-dealer, who boasted to fellow millionaire and golf staple George Coleman that amateur golfers Harvie Ward and Ken Venturi could hands down beat any oth
The Magical Game: The Spirit and History of Baseball's Superstitions, Rituals, and Curses
Addy Baird · 304 pages
The Best Game Ever: Giants vs. Colts, 1958, and the Birth of the Modern NFL
Mark Bowden · 279 pages
The bestselling author "Black Hawk Down" writes the remarkable story of the 1958 NFL Championship game between the Colts and the Giants--considered by many to be the greatest football game ever played.
The Three-Year Swim Club: The Untold Story of Maui's Sugar Ditch Kids and Their Quest for Olympic Glory
Julie Checkoway · 431 pages
The inspirational story of a group of impoverished children who were transformed into champion swimmers. In 1937 an ordinary grammar school teacher on the island of Maui took a group of underprivileged children, mostly of Japanese ancestry, and in three short years transformed them into Olympic champions.
Summer of '68: The Season That Changed Baseball—and America—Forever
Tim Wendel · 272 pages
In a year shaped by national tragedy, baseball was shaped by amazing pitching--culminating in a victory by a Detroit Tigers team that faced off against Bob Gibson's St. Louis Cardinals, the 1967 World Series defending champions.