Summer Ball

In Mike Lupica’s Summer Ball, published in 2007, 13-year-old Danny Walker heads to an elite basketball summer camp called Right Way. Here, he will match his nationally-recognized skills against some of the best young basketball players in the country. The New York Times-bestselling novelpicks up where Lupica’s previous novel, Travel Team, leaves off: Walker, cut from his local Middletown basketball travel team because he’s too short, leads his new team to the seventh-grade national championship. Using his particular brand of talent and sportsmanship, Walker defies expectation once againin Summer Ball.

After a stunning championship win, Danny’s team experiences a mediocre season. This dampens Danny’s previous high from the championship. Danny then begins to dwell on his height again, worried that the taller players will outperform him at camp and in high school. Despite encouragement from his best friends and teammates, Ty Ross and Will Stoddard, Danny faces basketball camp with the wrong attitude. Danny usually rises to any challenge. However, he lets his height undermine him before he even steps onto the court. At the same time, Danny believes his crush, Tess Hewitt, will fall into the arms of new, talltennis prodigy Scott Welles.