Add to your March Madness with these basketball stories for kids, teens, and adults.
Falling Short by Ernesto Cisneros
Two best friends, one athletically gifted and one academically gifted, have more in common than they realize when their goals intersect, forcing them to find a way to support each other so they dont fall short.
Zayd Saleem, Chasing the Dream by Hena Khan
Collects three stories, previously published separately, about Zayd, who gains the support of his family and friends to pursue his dream of becoming a star player on his middle school basketball team.
When Jayden and his teammates find out there’s not going to be a Hoop Group this year–and maybe ever again–they have to learn to lean on each other if they want to save their basketball season.
Thrilled when his legendary coach grandfather comes out of retirement for Lucas basketball season, Lucas chooses his grandfather as a role model for a biography assignment only to discover other truths about his grandfathers nature.
Pippa Park Raises Her Game by Erin Yun
Life is full of great expectations for Korean American Pippa Park. So when she gets a mysterious basketball scholarship to Lakeview Private, she jumps at the chance to reinvent herself. At Lakeview, Pippa juggles old and new friends, a crush, and the pressure to perform at school while keeping her past and her family’s laundromat a secret from her elite classmates. When social media threatens Pippas persona, she wonders if she can keep it together.
After the city shuts down his wheelchair team’s gym, thirteen-year-old Carlos, new to life in a wheelchair, must embrace his new role in the sport he loves to truly become part of the team–and help save their season.
Inaugural Ballers by Andrew Maraniss
From the New York Times bestselling author of Strong Inside comes the inspirational true story of the birth of women’s Olympic basketball at the 1976 Summer Games and the ragtag team that put US women’s basketball on the map.
No Stopping Us Now by Lucy Jane Bledsoe
When Louisa asks her principal to start a girls basketball team, she’s soon viciously targeted by male coaches at her school, lied to by the school board, and dismissed as “out of line” as she fights for a fair chance to be an athlete.
The Comic Book Story of Basketball by Fred Van Lente
The history of basketball told in comic form chronicles the sport from its early days in a YMCA in Massachusetts to its current status of an insanely popular and beloved game for people of all ages around the world.
Wrong Side of the Court by H. N. Khan
Dreaming of being the world’s first Pakistani to be drafted into the NBA, fifteen-year-old Fawad Chaudhry must convince his mother to let him try out for the basketball team while dealing with the neighborhood bully.
They Better Call Me Sugar by Sugar Rodgers
Sugar Rodgers’s road to a successful WNBA career was fraught with hardship and tragedy. Left essentially homeless at fourteen, she clung to basketball as a way to keep herself focused and sane. Here Rodgers delivers a powerful message of discipline, perseverance, and self-determination for anyone growing up in economically challenging conditions.
All the Things We Never Knew by Liara Tamani
A seemingly idyllic romance between rising basketball stars Carli and Rex is challenged by Carlis secret distaste for the game, her parents crumbling marriage and a lack of family affection that causes Rex to doubt himself.
Lost in the Game by Thomas Beller
For players, coaches, writers, and fans, basketball is a science and an art, a religious sacrament, a source of entertainment, and a way of interacting with the world. In Lost in the Game, Thomas Beller entwines these threads with his lifetime experience as a player and journalist, roaming NBA locker rooms and city parks alike as a basketball flâneur in search of the meaning of the modern game.
Return of the King by Brian Windhorst
Documents LeBron James’s return to the Cleveland Cavaliers and the secret meetings and controversial decisions behind the scenes that set the team on the path to win the 2016 NBA championship.
Chronicling the life and times of the late basketball legend, and drawing on a conducted series of never-before-released interviews, this unforgettable exploration of the identity and making of an icon provides an insight into Kobe Bryant that no other analysis has.
Tall Men, Short Shorts by Leigh Montville
A New York Times bestselling author and future sports writing legend presents an exciting account of the 1969 NBA finals one of the greatest upsets in basketball history.
Dust Bowl Girls by Lydia Reeder
Traces the Depression-era efforts of a charismatic basketball coach from tiny Oklahoma Presbyterian College who recruited talented young women to join his hope-giving basketball team in exchange for a prospect-bolstering college education.
Can’t Knock the Hustle by Matt Sullivan
An award-winning journalist shares the story of the Brooklyn Nets first season with superstars Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving in the middle of the wildest year in NBA history, facing COVID-19 and the death of Kobe Bryant.
