Lee's Necessary Roughness

Chan Kim's family moves from California, where they have a grocery store and a comfortable life in a Korean community, to a small town in Minnesota, where it is tough to fit in. Chan decides to play football, and does fairly well, although his father would prefer he spend his time studying.

There is just enough football in this book to interest fans, but it doesn't come into the book for a while. The main focus of this book is the family dynamics and the change in culture with which Chan and his sister have to cope. That's probably why I liked it so much. The writing was tight but descriptive, and the story didn't drag at all. There was a surprise toward the end that really knocked me for a loop, not in a particularly good way, but it didn't take away from the fact that this was a nice sports book that I will be glad to give to my students.

This title is from 1998, so there's not the best cover art. The new cover art on books is so good that yesterday I waved The Chaos Code in front of a student and said "You want this book!" He stared at it for a moment and said "You're right-- I do!"