From: esullivan
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1999 16:29:09 -0500

Hi Brenda and All:
     
     I find kids who are very much into sports do indeed enjoy reading
     sports fiction and nonfiction. In fact, it's that very subject that
     attracts to the book in the first place. What I have found is that a
     lot of books who read a "sports novel" are disappointed to find there
     isn't as much sports in it as they thought there would be.
     
     Two examples: One middle school boy took Will Weaver's Hard Ball,
     believing it would be a baseball story. The cover certainly suggested
     it would be as did the jacket blurb, but he was disappointed to find
     that baseball was a fairly minor element in the story. Another high
     school student I know took Chris Lynch's Iceman to read thinking it
     would be a good hockey story. Here too the cover suggested as much,
     but again this reader was disappointed that hockey was not what the
     novel was really about.
     
     Those two boys and other YA readers I know would say to editors like
     you that would like covers to more accurately depict the contents of a
     book. If the novel really isn't it about sports, don't give it one
     that sells it as such.
     
     Ed Sullivan, Senior Project Librarian
     The New York Public Library
     Connecting Libraries and Schools Project (CLASP)


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: SPORTS FICTION Author: Brenda_Bowen at prenhall.com at Internet Date: 1/5/99 11:04 PM


     Here's a question to get the conversation going:
     
     There is an accepted convention among publishers that kids who play
     sports don't want to *read about* kids who play sports: They want to
     be out there, doing. This has been borne out at a number of publishing
     houses, where sports fiction (series especially) has been tried and
     has failed.
     
     There are exceptions, of course: baseball seems to have a loyal and
     literate following; girls' sports fiction does pretty well, as long
     as the focus is on "glamour" sports -- horseback riding, gymnastics,
     ice skating; and many isolated titles, e.g. THE RUNNER (Voigt),
     IRONMAN (Crutcher), S.O.R. LOSERS (Avi), are read for years.
     
     So, teachers and librarians, is it true? Can we not consistently hook
     sports-players on books about their sport? Are we going about it in
     the wrong way? Or are we making a mistake to think that sports
     players *want* sports books. Maybe after working out all morning,
     practicing football all afternoon, nursing injuries all evening,
     football players want to curl up with some great science fiction.
Received on Thu 07 Jan 1999 03:29:09 PM CST