We get profiles of the various members of the team, from the players themselves and their varied backgrounds, to Coach Lou and his own personal connection as a former player, to Yang himself as he is thinking about his own dreams. While he could have had a structure that was purely factual, or perhaps a story that profiles just one player, or even a story that focuses on a coach’s deferred dreams that are possibly going to come true, he manages to take aspects of all these things and balance them into a combination. We follow Yang as he’s following his school’s basketball team in it’s journey to hopefully win State, and he finds a lot of layers and depth and heart to put on display. And because of that, I was immediately hooked on this story that’s part memoir, part history, and part inspirational sports story. Looking into it more, I realized that this wasn’t going to be a book that was just about basketball. But given that Gene Luen Yang is one of my favorite comics writers, I knew that I was going to read his newest book “Dragon Hoops”, even if it was about basketball. I can’t even tell you why that is, but I’ve never enjoyed it, even when I was playing on the basketball team in sixth grade. Review: Though I’m not really a huge sports fan in general, if you asked me what my least favorite ‘mainstream’ sport to watch was, I’d undoubtedly say basketball. What he doesn’t know yet is that this season is not only going to change the Dragons’s lives, but his own life as well. He knows he has to follow this epic to its end.

Once Gene gets to know these young all-stars, he realizes that their story is just as thrilling as anything he’s seen on a comic book page. Each victory brings them closer to their ultimate goal: the California State Championships. The men’s varsity team, the Dragons, is having a phenomenal season that’s been decades in the making. He lost interest in basketball long ago, but at the high school where he now teaches, it’s all anyone can talk about. As a kid, his friends called him “Stick” and every basketball game he played ended in pain. And the hero always wins.īut Gene doesn’t get sports. Gene understands stories-comic book stories, in particular. Publishing Info: First Second, March 2020īook Description: In his latest graphic novel, New York Times bestselling author Gene Luen Yang turns the spotlight on his life, his family, and the high school where he teaches.

Dragon hoops full book