Game Changer

Prolific author Tommy Greenwald departs from humorous topics, like his Charlie Joe Jackson series, to investigate the highly relevant topics of violence in sports, concussions, hazing rituals, Internet citizenship, and divorce in a timely story about football. Star freshman Teddy Youngblood collapses at the end of a summer football training camp and lands comatose in the hospital with a traumatic brain injury. The truth about the tragic incident unravels slowly in a multimedia format through open verse dialogue by his angry divorced parents, his concerned sister and grandmother, his upset coach and frantic friends, as well as in text messages, in online forum posts, in interview transcripts from school counsellors, in newspaper articles, and in patient medical notes. Thirteen-year-old Teddy’s troubled innermost thoughts from the depths of his coma adds to the deliberate pace and authenticity of the events, enhancing the suspense. This powerful message of how one hit changed everything will appeal to reluctant readers, and to fans of Kwame Alexander’s sports novels in verse.