Sports Book Reviews | Self-Publishing Review

Review: This Was Never About Basketball by Craig Leener

★★★★★

Coming of age and basketball combine in Craig Leener’s thoroughly entertaining YA novel, This Was Never About Basketball.

Seventeen-year-old Ezekiel “Zeke” Archer lives and breathes basketball and has managed to land a full basketball scholarship to the University of Kansas…until an unsportsmanlike punch and a subsequent brawl gets Zeke and his two best friends, Curtis and Stretch, unceremoniously expelled and finishing high school at Ernest T. McDerney Continuation School, a purgatory for at-risk high school kids.

Worst of all, Zeke’s scholarship is withdrawn and his life is on a downhill slide – until he learns of a basketball […]

Review: The Curse Ends by Jeff Attinella, Illustrated by Mike Pascale

The Curse Ends: The Story of the 2016 Chicago Cubs, written by Jeff Attinella, is a great bedtime read that will be a source of inspiration for future Little Leaguers, as well as inspire a love of the great American pastime.

In rhyming prose, this charming children’s books tells the story of the Chicago Cubs “curse” and how they beat the curse in 2016. The year is 1945 and it’s game four of the World Series. A man wants to buy a seat for his Billy goat but the crowd protests and they’re kicked out of the stadium, leading […]

Marta Cheng2019-02-11T08:35:08+02:00August 7th, 2017|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Children's Book Reviews, Sports Book Reviews|

Review: Cleveland Wins a Championship by Jeff Attinella, Illustrated by Steve Madden

Jeff Attinella’s children’s book, Cleveland Wins a Championship: The Story of the 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers, gives its readers a great sports story with drawings that jump off the page, thanks to the considerable talents of illustrator Steve Madden.

Attinella tells the story not only of the Cavaliers, but down-on-their-luck Cleveland sports fans, who never seem to catch a break. In spirited rhyming prose, it tells the story of hometown hero LeBron James, from his early years with the Cavs, his heartbreaking departure, and his triumphant return. As he’s the most popular player in basketball, this is a book that […]

Marta Cheng2019-02-11T08:34:55+02:00August 5th, 2017|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Children's Book Reviews, Sports Book Reviews|

Greatest Ever by Jeff Attinella, Illustrated by David Boyd

Written by Jeff Attinella with illustrations by David Boyd, Greatest Ever: The Story of a Coach, a Quarterback and a Comeback is a heartwarming sports story for the primary reader that also works very well as a bedtime story.

Greatest Ever tells the story of the New England Patriot’s miraculous win in Super Bowl 51 and the Patriot’s road to dominance in the NFL. With four Super Bowl wins under their belt, Brady and Belichick went into Super Bowl 51 against the Atlanta Falcons. Midway through the third quarter, the Patriots were down by 25 but came back in a […]

Marta Cheng2017-07-13T09:03:11+02:00July 12th, 2017|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Children's Book Reviews, Sports Book Reviews|

Tennis with God by Brian Cox

In Tennis with God: My Quest for the Perfect Game and Peace With My Father, author Brian Cox tells an engaging globe-trotting story about tennis, spirituality, and healing fractured relationships.

Born in Kenya, presaging a life of international wandering, Brian Cox was the son of a US embassy professional, ex-boxer, and tennis addict whose domination resulted in Brian learning the game of tennis early on. He lived in Yemen, Vietnam, and Colombia, and attended college in the US, continuing his interests in tennis and Eastern spirituality. For many years he worked with Dennis Adams, his spiritual advisor and surrogate father. […]

Barbara Scott2018-05-09T10:17:49+02:00July 1st, 2017|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Memoir Book Reviews, Non-Fiction Book Reviews, Spirituality Book Reviews, Sports Book Reviews|

Review: My Kill Play: When a Virus Hijacked the Roller Derby by Tim Patten

★★★★

Roller derby, in its modern form, has been a cult phenomenon across the world. A thrilling and dangerous sport, it has evolved from childhood pastime to a spectacular arena of courage and cunning on-wheels. My Kill Play: When A Virus Hijacked the Roller Derby is a personal account of author Tim Patten’s experiences with the sport, as childhood hobbyist to professional, and the way his life and those around him changed throughout the late 20th Century during one of the most infamous first-world medical crises of the past forty years.

My Kill Play joins Patten’s previous publication, Roller Babes: […]

James Grimsby2017-03-31T11:44:57+02:00March 30th, 2017|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: LGBTQI+ Book Reviews, Memoir Book Reviews, Sports Book Reviews|

Sean Goes To Barcelona by Tanya Preminger

Sean Goes To Barcelona by Tanya Preminger is a book aimed at middle-grade readers about a mom and son’s visit to Barcelona to see the Barca soccer team play, explore the city, and maybe meet the boy’s hero, Messi. Expertly illustrated by Elettra Cudignotto, it’s a spirited adventure through a foreign city, and an ode to the world’s most popular sport.

As this is the second book in the series (following Sean Wants to be Messi), it would have helped if the author had established Sean’s love of Messi for those readers who are picking this book up as […]

Lysa Grant2016-10-27T03:38:54+02:00October 27th, 2016|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Children's Book Reviews, Sports Book Reviews|

Review: Rubber Match by Marcus Cootsona

★★★★

There is a clear line between comic fiction and intelligent social satire, and Marcus Cootsona’s novel, Rubber Match, treads a careful dance between the two, providing an entertaining narrative, but never letting readers forget that they are enjoying the handily crafted prose of a witty wordsmith. Peppered with clever modern allusions and sharp rhetoric, the novel is a smart, savvy, tongue-in-cheek work of fiction. Cootsona knows his audience and plays to the crowd, moving slowly at times, but always with a feeling that things will soon get uniquely interesting.

Following a few brief, tennis-heavy chapters, Wally, an ex-tennis […]