LOVE, FOOTBALL, AND OTHER CONTACT SPORTS

It isn’t a sports story, nor romance. Instead, 14 short stories reveal the little lessons in life learned by small-town Wisconsin high-school kids—jocks and nerds, pretty and plain, smart and dumb. While football provides a motif, Carter’s more common theme is standing up for the little guy. These kids are good people, mostly, who may not want to help some nerdy or retarded kid, but do it anyway. While each story stands alone, they progress in time and return to the same characters often, allowing readers to see them from different perspectives while avoiding stereotypes. A full portrait of Argyle High School emerges, a place where the biggest, dumbest jocks, the abused, the popular, the reclusive, or retarded kids can learn to shine brightly. For reluctant readers or advanced, funny, heartwarming, lovely stuff. (Fiction. YA)