For this July blog post we are highlighting sports of all kinds! Young adult sport books for this month feature teens and young adults overcoming tremendous hurdles and obstacles to achieve their dreams, find their identity, and succeed. In these fiction novels, the stories illuminate the many struggles that teens can undergo and the realities of being an athlete. Through evocative themes and stories full of pure heart and passion, these books will be sure to enthrall you! Whether you enjoy novels of competition, underdogs, perseverance, or sports in general it will appeal to all teen readers interested in venturing into sports youth literature.

Bishop, Jenn
Free Throws, Friendship, and Other Things We Fouled Up. 2023. Middle Grade.
New to Cincinnati, where her father is now coach of the university basketball team, eighth-grader Aurora (called Rory) finds herself isolated by the heated team rivalries–especially when it turns out her new friend Abby’s father has a mysterious feud with Rory’s father that threatens her new friendship.
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Farid, Diana
Wave. 2022. Young Adult.
A coming-of-age novel in verse set in 1980s Southern California, about a Persian American girl. Thirteen-year-old Ava loves to surf and to sing. Singing and reading Rumi poems settles her mild OCD, and catching waves with her best friend, Phoenix, lets her fit in — her olive skin looks tan, not foreign. But then Ava has to spend the summer before ninth grade volunteering at the hospital, to follow in her single mother’s footsteps to become a doctor. And when Phoenix’s past lymphoma surges back, not even surfing, singing, or poetry can keep them afloat, threatening Ava’s hold on the one place and the one person that makes her feel like she belongs. With ocean-like rhythm and lyricism, Wave is about a girl who rides the waves, tumbles, and finds her way back to the shore.
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Fujimura, Sara
Every Reason We Shouldn’t. 2020. Young Adult.
Sixteen-year-old figure skater Olivia Kennedy’s Olympic dreams have ended. She’s bitter but enjoying life as a regular teenager instead of trying to live up to expectations of being the daughter of Olympians Michael Kennedy and Midori Nakashima — until Jonah Choi starts training at her family’s struggling rink. Jonah’s driven, talented, going to the Olympics in speed skating, completely annoying — and totally gorgeous. Between teasing Jonah, helping her best friend try out for roller derby, figuring out life as a normal teen and keeping the family business running, Olivia’s got her hands full. But will rivalry bring her closer to Jonah, or drive them apart?
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Goodman, Jessica
They’ll Never Catch Us. 2021. Young Adult
Sisters Stella and Ellie Steckler are both determined to win a scholarship and escape their stifling small town, but their plans are upset when a new girl joins the cross-country team and then disappears. Cross-country running is Stella Steckler’s life, and she won’t let anything get in the way of being the best. Her sister Ellie is a talented runner too, but she has friends, goes to parties, and has a life off the course. Their lives are upended when Mila Keene comes to town. At first they view her as a threat. But Ellie’s been looking for a friend, and in a moment of weakness shares her darkest secret with Mila. Stella also connects with Mila but finds her a distraction. When Mila goes out on a training run and doesn’t return, all eyes are on the Steckler sisters.
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Graves, Byron
Rez Ball. 2023. Young Adult.

These days, Tre Brun is happiest when he is playing basketball on the Red Lake Reservation high school team–even though he can’t help but be constantly gut-punched with memories of his big brother, Jaxon, who died in an accident. When Jaxon’s former teammates on the varsity team offer to take Tre under their wing, he sees this as his shot to represent his Ojibwe rez all the way to their first state championship. This is the first step toward his dream of playing in the NBA, no matter how much the odds are stacked against him. But stepping into his brother’s shoes as a star player means that Tre can’t mess up. Not on the court, not at school, and not with his new friend, gamer Khiana, who he is definitely not falling in love with. After decades of rez teams almost making it, Tre needs to take his team to state. Because if he can live up to Jaxon’s dreams, their story isn’t over yet.
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Kress, Emma
Dangerous Play. 2021. Young Adult.
Zoe Alamandar has one goal: win the State Field Hockey Championships and earn a scholarship that will get her the hell out of central New York. She and her co-captain Ava Cervantes have assembled a fierce team of dedicated girls who will work hard and play by the rules. But after Zoe is sexually assaulted at a party, she finds a new goal: make sure no girl feels unsafe again. Zoe and her teammates decide to stop playing by the rules and take justice into their own hands. Soon, their suburban town has a team of superheroes meting out punishments, but one night of vigilantism may cost Zoe her team, the championship, her scholarship, and her future.
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Marie, Racquel
You Don’t Have a Shot. 2023. Young Adult.
Valentina “Vale” Castillo-Green’s life revolves around soccer. When she incites a fight during the playoffs with her long-time rival, Leticia Ortiz, everything she has been working toward seems to disappear. Vale escapes to soccer camp for a summer of relaxation and redemption, only to find out that she and the endlessly aggravating Leticia will be co-captaining a team that could play in front of college scouts. Unless they can get their rookie team’s act together, this second chance — and any hope of playing college soccer — will slip through their fingers. What starts off as a shaky alliance of necessity begins to blossom into something more.
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Mendez, Yamile Saied
Furia. 2020. Young Adult.
Seventeen-year-old Camila Hassan, a rising soccer star in Rosario, Argentina, dreams of playing professionally, in defiance of her father’s wishes and at the risk of her budding romance with Diego. In Rosario, Argentina, Camila Hassan leads a double life. At home, she is a careful daughter, living within her mother’s narrow expectations, in the shadow of her soccer-star brother, and under the abusive rule of her short-tempered father. On the field, she is La Furia, a powerhouse of skill and talent. When her team qualifies for the South American tournament, Camila gets the chance to see just how far those talents can take her. But the path ahead isn’t easy. Her parents would never allow a girl to play fútbol, and she needs their permission to go any farther. And the boy she once loved is back in town. Since he left, Diego has become an international fútbol celebrity, but things have changed for Camila, too: she has her own passions and ambitions, and Furia cannot be denied. As her life becomes more complicated, Camila is forced to face her secrets and make her way in a world unprepared for the dreams of a girl like her. Furia is an achingly real and powerfully told story about family, identity, first love, and, of course, fútbol. It will resonate with anyone who has been told she can’t have it all — especially those who have gone out to get it anyway.
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Takaoka, Shannon
Everything I Thought I Knew. 2020. Young Adult.
Seventeen-year-old Chloe had a plan: work hard, get good grades, and attend a top-tier college. But after she collapses during cross-country practice and is told that she needs a new heart, all her careful preparations are laid to waste. Eight months after her transplant, everything is different. Stuck in summer school with the underachievers, all she wants to do now is grab her surfboard and hit the waves — which is strange, because she wasn’t interested in surfing before her transplant. (It doesn’t hurt that her instructor, Kai, is seriously good-looking.) And that’s not all that’s strange. There’s also the vivid recurring nightmare about crashing a motorcycle in a tunnel and memories of people and places she doesn’t recognize. Is there something wrong with her head now, too, or is there another explanation for what she’s experiencing? As she searches for answers, and as her attraction to Kai intensifies, what she learns will lead her to question everything she thought she knew about life, death, love, identity, and the true nature of reality.
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Tomp, Sarah
The Easy Part of Impossible. 2020. Young Adult.
After an injury forces Ria off the diving team, she forms an unexpected friendship with Cotton, a neuro-divergent boy who helps her to see that Coach Benny’s training methods were actually abuse. Then Benny returns, offering Ria a second chance with a life-changing diving opportunity. How do you separate the impossible from possible when the one thing you love is so tangled up in the thing you fear most?
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