Fast Break To Line Break

If baseball is the sport of nostalgic prose, basketball’s movement, myths, and culture are truly at home in verse. In this extraordinary collection of essays, poets meditate on what basketball means to them: how it has changed their perspective on the craft of poetry; how it informs their sense of language, the body, and human connectedness; how their love of the sport made a difference in the creation of their poems and in the lives they live beyond the margins. Walt Whitman saw the origins of poetry as communal, oral myth making. The same could be said of basketball, which is the beating heart of so many neighborhoods and communities in this country and around the world. On the court and on the page, this “poetry in motion” can be a force of change and inspiration, leaving devoted fans wonderstruck.

Since his mother's death, Jayson, twelve, has focused on basketball and surviving but he is found out and placed with an affluent foster family of a different race, and must learn to accept many changes, including facing his former teammates in a championship game.

From the #1 bestselling author of Heat, Travel Team and Million-Dollar Throw comes a feel-good basketball tale reminiscent of The Blind Side. Forced to live on his own after his mom dies and her boyfriend abandons him, 12-year-old Jayson does whatever it takes to get by. He will do anything to avoid the foster care system. Besides, his real home has always been the beat-up basketball court behind the projects in the North Carolina hills, and his family has always been his friends and teammates. He manages to get away with his deception until the day he gets caught stealing a new pair of basketball sneakers. Game over. Within a day a social worker places him with a family from the other side of town, the Lawtons. New home, new school, new teammates. Jayson, at first, is combatative, testing the Lawtons' patience at every turn. He wants out, yet the Lawtons refuse to take the bait. But not everyone in Jayson's new life is so ready to trust him--and even Jayson's old friends give him a hard time now that he's attending a school full of rich kids. It's on Jayson to believe that he deserves a better life than the one he once had. The ultimate prize if he can? A trip to play in the state finals at Cameron Indoor Stadium–home to the Duke Blue Devils and launching pad to his dream of playing bigtime college ball. Getting there will be a journey that reaches far beyond the basketball court. In the tradition of uplifting stories like The Blind Side, Fast Break has all the family-friendly sports action Mike Lupica has become known and loved for. Praise for Fast Break "Eager fans will find this a slam-dunk. A must-purchase."–Booklist "Lupica's announcer-like delivery will have you breathless, on the edge of your seat, cheering."–Florida Times-Union "Fast Break is the perfect middle-grade read for fans of basketball. With so much attention to detail in each game, readers are practically with the characters on the court. Lupica has done it again."–VOYA

It's 24/7 money, fame, and game on-and off-the court. But the real action is behind the scenes in Regina Hart's sizzling new pro b-ball series, where the stakes are everything and winning means playing for keeps. . . He's a two-time MVP and three-time championship winner. He lives to be the best. And now that he's a first-time coach, DeMarcus Guinn will lead the NBA's worst team to the top his way-or no way at all. But the team's fiery franchise owner, Jaclyn Jones, is fighting him at every turn. And their unexpectedly seductive one-on-one is the kind of game time he can't resist. . . Turning her family's team into winners is Jaclyn's only hope of saving them and her community. She's used to being in control, but DeMarcus' determination-and the way he makes her feel-are like no moves she's ever seen. And with everything they care about on the line, they'll have to play to win . . . or lose their hearts.

Jeff is not impressed when his family moves from Toronto to small-town Nova Scotia. He doesn't know anyone and there isn't much to do--until he joins his new school's basketball team. Jeff is fast on the court and has a sharp jump shot, and soon he's hanging out with with his new teammates. Some of them are pretty rough, though, and when they start picking on other kids Jeff feels that he should step up and say something. He soon learns that he can't solve every problem with fast moves on the court. Fast Break shows how the challenges of sport equip us for the challenges of life. [Fry Reading Level - 3.9

In the sixth book in the New York Times bestselling middle grade series inspired by the life of iconic New York Yankee Derek Jeter, young Derek bites off more than he can chew when he decides to enter the school talent show and try out for the basketball team. Between promising Vijay that he’ll compete in the school talent show and promising Dave that he’ll try out for the basketball team, Derek Jeter has a lot he’s trying to juggle. A commitment is a commitment, and Derek is determined to work hard and try his best, but he worries he might be in over his head and fears he’s going to let his friends or himself down. How can Derek do it all? Inspired by Derek Jeter’s childhood, Fast Break is the sixth book in Jeter Publishing’s New York Times bestselling middle grade baseball series that focuses on key life lessons from Derek Jeter’s Turn 2 Foundation.

This is the 6:th Basketball Drill book covering Fast Break Drills.

A dazzling new anthology of 180 contemporary poems, selected and introduced by America’s Poet Laureate, Billy Collins. Inspired by Billy Collins’s poem-a-day program with the Library of Congress, Poetry 180 is the perfect anthology for readers who appreciate engaging, thoughtful poems that are an immediate pleasure. A 180-degree turn implies a turning back—in this case, to poetry. A collection of 180 poems by the most exciting poets at work today, Poetry 180 represents the richness and diversity of the form, and is designed to beckon readers with a selection of poems that are impossible not to love at first glance. Open the anthology to any page and discover a new poem to cherish, or savor all the poems, one at a time, to feel the full measure of contemporary poetry’s vibrance and abundance. With poems by Catherine Bowman, Lucille Clifton, Billy Collins, Dana Gioia, Edward Hirsch, Galway Kinnell, Kenneth Koch, Philip Levine, Thomas Lux, William Matthews, Frances Mayes, Paul Muldoon, Naomi Shihab Nye, Sharon Olds, Katha Pollitt, Mary Jo Salter, Charles Simic, David Wojahn, Paul Zimmer, and many more.