Summer Ball

In the Book Summer Ball by Mike Lupica has some issues in it. In the Book protagonist Danny Walker goes to Right Way Basketball camp to work on his game. He finds himself being the smallest player as per usual but encounters some other problems along the way. The story is unfair because at many points Danny is treated unfairly by his coaches or fellow teammates.

            For example, a coach at camp asks to have a private meeting with Danny. And he tells him that basketball isn’t the sport for him and maybe he should try soccer. I find this really unjust because the job of a coach is to teach, help a team win, and that can only happen if he is trying to make his players and team better each day. Here, in this scene the coach is not teaching, or helping any team win, and neither is he trying to make Danny better. In fact, he’s just hurting Danny’s already low self-esteem. I think Danny gets treated unfairly like that throughout the book and really it’s just because of his height. If somebody said that to me I wouldn’t be happy- especially a coach.

            Another example of this is the way Danny gets bullied. The bullying comes mostly from a boy named Lamar Parish from Baltimore, at first he drags his “friend” Rasheed into it but then after Rasheed befriends Danny. Now this part of the story is unfair because at first not only was Danny ganged up on, he knew he couldn’t do anything back. They were taking advantage of his size, and their mass of people compared to just him. Yet what makes this part so unfair is the coaches or directors at camp do nothing to stop this- they just let it happen. Danny wasn’t getting the same rights as everyone else and honestly that’s really unfair.

            All in all, while the story was very moving, inspiring and one of my favorite books of all time there are a lot of unfair and unjust things that go on at Right Way camp. Danny goes through some bullying that no kid should ever have to go through, especially from an older stranger. I think the action scenes are best in this book but Lupica really has a plot in all of his sports novels which not all writers can do as well as him.