Out of the Tunnel

by Patrick Jones

Overview

In Troy, Ohio, there's Trojan football and then there's everything else. It's been that way as long as anyone can remember. But it's been more than a decade since Troy took home the state title. This season, they finally have a chance to end the drought.

Brian Norwood is the son of a Trojan football legend. His father starred on the last championship team—an undefeated team. And it seems like every sacred Trojan tradition began with his dad. Now Brian is the starting tight end—a member of the team's inner circle. He's finally living up to his father's expectations. But being one of Troy's privileged few is not at all what Brian expected.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781467774147
Publisher:	Lerner Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/01/2014
Series:	The Red Zone , #1
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	104
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	9 - 10 Years

About the Author

Patrick Jones lives in Minneapolis and is the author of many novels including the Support and Defend series. A former librarian, Jones received lifetime achievement awards from the American Library Association and the Catholic Library Association.

Editorial Reviews

08/04/2014
With the kickoff of the Red Zone series, focused on the beloved high school football team in tiny Troy, Ohio, and written at a fourth-grade level, Jones shows that the cult of blind jock worship is still alive and well, but it’s also being challenged by independent-minded student athletes. Even though Brian is a varsity starter, he can’t escape the shadow of his overbearing football legend father, who was part of the school’s championship team years ago. He hesitantly takes part in some ugly, destructive traditions of the Big Six (the inner circle of players) and damages friendships before deciding that self-respect and his love of the game are what’s most important. A vibrant mix of personalities and circumstances among the team members and staff—including the pompous, Vince Lombardi–quoting Coach Z—sets the stage for additional tales of the Trojans’ pivotal season. Simultaneously available: Breakthrough, The Option, and At All Costs. Ages 11–18. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"These books can be effortlessly advertised to boys reading below grade level who still maintain an interest in contemporary topics. This series will be an easy selection to stock on school shelves." —VOYA

From the Publisher

2014-06-10
An uneasy story of entitlement gone wrong, first in a series about the players on an Ohio high school football team.Though the sport of football is taking some serious lumps today, there are still those who think the players possess a special mojo. As tight end, one of the elite, Brian Norwood is falling into that trap, and he is part of the hazing rituals the seniors wreak on the juniors, pranks that can turn into crimes. Jones writes with an unvarnished sense of being there and with a taste of the rightly judgmental. The white knight is Dylan, another potential member of the inner circle, who finds the rituals not just distasteful, but shameful, but Brian falls short. Peer pressure has sunk better men, but in the end, Brian doesn’t own his abominable behavior. If Jones had wanted this to be cinéma vérité, where the path is never straight and the mood is existential, then the story had to be much more subtle and the skies lower. As it is, Brian loses readers’ sympathy, and the point of the story is too grim for its essential cluelessness. Publishing simultaneously in the Red Zone series are Breakthrough, by A.L. Priest; The Option, by Herman Brown; and At All Costs, by Jones and Brent Chartier.Pungent but also sour. (Fiction. 11-18)

Kirkus Reviews