An uplifting book about triumphing over adversity.
How an all-deaf football team from Southern California beat the odds to become state champions.
Fuller’s beat as San Francisco bureau chief for the New York Times included reporting on hard-hitting “heavy stuff” like in-state natural disasters, mass shootings, and poverty. Yet when he ran across the story of the Cubs, a football team from the California School for the Deaf, Riverside, he felt called to investigate. “This team’s journey, a tale of belonging and excellence, was the story I wanted to write,” he notes. “It felt like a salve at a time of such turmoil for the country.” In 2022, Fuller temporarily gave up his bureau chief position and moved to Riverside, where he followed the team for one extraordinary season when the team “wanted to prove that being deaf on the gridiron gave them an edge.” Watching games and immersing himself in interviews conducted through American Sign Language interpreters, he came to know the players and their community. He also learned about the eight-man game the Cubs played—which some called the purest form of football—while observing how team members, though often physically smaller than those they played, relied on inborn gifts like speed, agility, and their ability to understand their world through heightened powers of observation. What makes Fuller’s book such a page-turner—and very much a story for a wide audience beyond sports enthusiasts—is its deep involvement with the Cubs as people. From the first chapter, the author makes it clear that his story is not just about a winning team, but about human resilience and the players who exemplified it—e.g., Phillip Castaneda, an unhoused student who dazzled on the field with quickness, and Felix Gonzalez, who broke his leg just before the playoffs that the Cubs ultimately won in his honor.
An uplifting book about triumphing over adversity.Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9780385549875
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2024
“Protect your passion,” writes an NBA star in this winning exploration of how we can succeed in life.
A future basketball Hall of Famer’s rosy outlook.
Curry is that rare athlete who looks like he gets joy from what he does. There’s no doubt that the Golden State Warriors point guard is a competitor—he’s led his team to four championships—but he plays the game with nonchalance and exuberance. That ease, he says, “only comes from discipline.” He practices hard enough—he’s altered the sport by mastering the three-point shot—so that he achieves a “kind of freedom.” In that “flow state,” he says, “I can let joy and creativity take over. I block out all distractions, even the person guarding me. He can wave his arms and call me every name in the book, but I just smile and wait as the solution to the problem—how to get the ball into the basket—presents itself.” Curry shares this approach to his craft in a stylish collection that mixes life lessons with sharp photographs and archival images. His dad, Dell, played in the NBA for 16 years, and Curry learned much from his father and mother: “My parents were extremely strict about me and my little brother Seth not going to my pops’s games on school nights.” Curry’s mother, Sonya, who founded the Montessori elementary school that Curry attended in North Carolina, emphasized the importance not just of learning but of playing. Her influence helped Curry and his wife, Ayesha, create a nonprofit foundation: Eat. Learn. Play. He writes that “making reading fun is the key to unlocking a kid’s ability to be successful in their academic journeys.” The book also has valuable pointers for ballers—and those hoping to hit the court. “Plant those arches—knees bent behind those 10 toes pointing at the hoop, hips squared with your shoulders—and draw your power up so you explode off the ground and rise into your shot.” Sounds easy, right?
“Protect your passion,” writes an NBA star in this winning exploration of how we can succeed in life.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9780593597293
Page Count: 432
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A familiar format, but a timely reminder that cities are made up of individuals, each with their own stories.
Portraits in a post-pandemic world.
After the Covid-19 lockdowns left New York City’s streets empty, many claimed that the city was “gone forever.” It was those words that inspired Stanton, whose previous collections include Humans of New York (2013), Humans of New York: Stories (2015), and Humans (2020), to return to the well once more for a new love letter to the city’s humanity and diversity. Beautifully laid out in hardcover with crisp, bright images, each portrait of a New Yorker is accompanied by sparse but potent quotes from Stanton’s interviews with his subjects. Early in the book, the author sequences three portraits—a couple laughing, then looking serious, then the woman with tears in her eyes—as they recount the arc of their relationship, transforming each emotional beat of their story into an affecting visual narrative. In another, an unhoused man sits on the street, his husky eating out of his hand. The caption: “I’m a late bloomer.” Though the pandemic isn’t mentioned often, Stanton focuses much of the book on optimistic stories of the post-pandemic era. Among the most notable profiles is Myles Smutney, founder of the Free Store Project, whose story of reclaiming boarded‑up buildings during the lockdowns speaks to the city’s resilience. In reusing the same formula from his previous books, the author confirms his thesis: New York isn’t going anywhere. As he writes in his lyrical prologue, “Just as one might dive among coral reefs to marvel at nature, one can come to New York City to marvel at humanity.” The book’s optimism paints New York as a city where diverse lives converge in moments of beauty, joy, and collective hope.
A familiar format, but a timely reminder that cities are made up of individuals, each with their own stories.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781250277589
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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