Volponi leaves his usual basketball milieu behind and sets his story in New Orleans at the time of Hurricane Katrina, with football and music as his themes. Miles lives with his mother in Chicago, but when she remarries, he chooses to live with his trumpeter dad and Uncle Roy, another musician, hoping to make his mark at his new school in football. Miles knows he’ll have to take care of himself whenever music calls because his father puts his music before anything else. Hurricane Katrina sets the rhythm and the scene as the three try to leave the city only to end up stuck in the Superdome. What begins as something of a lark gradually morphs into an ordeal out of nightmares. As the hurricane ratchets up in intensity, so does the need for Dad, Miles and Uncle Roy to discover what matters to them and how to defend it. Not for sissies—a riveting and readable exploration of the effects of race in today’s world. (Fiction. YA)
