QB 1

by Mike Lupica Narrated by Nicolas Tecosky

Overview

From #1 New York Times bestselling author of Travel Team, Heat, and Million-Dollar Throw comes a cheer-worthy, family-friendly football novel set amid the Friday Night Lights world of Texas high school football.
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Jake Cullen is a freshman quarterback playing high school football in the high-pressure land of Friday Night Lights (Texas). He is also the brother of Wyatt Cullen, who quarterbacked his team to the Texas State Championship last season-not to mention the son of former NFL quarterback and local legend, Troy Cullen. To be a Cullen in Texas is to be royalty . . . and a quarterback. All of which leaves 14-year-old Jake in a Texas-sized shadow, a tall order for any boy, especially one who's merely a freshman.
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While his teammates assume the starting job will be handed to Jake on a silver platter, the truth is that he has to fight for every snap and every ounce of respect. Jake may be a Cullen and he may play quarterback, but he is not his brother or his father. Being a good teammate comes naturally to Jake; being a winner and a celebrity does not. He's just like every other boy-awkward around a pretty girl, in awe of his famous family, and desperate to simultaneously blend in and cast his own shadow.
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Inspired by the real-life Manning family of quarterbacks (father Archie, Super Bowl-winning sons Peyton and Eli) and set amid the football-crazy culture of Texas immortalized in Friday Night Lights, QB 1 is a coming-of-age story perfect for the fan of Million-Dollar Throw, Heat, and, of course, Friday Night Lights.
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“This is a wonderful book by a great writer. All football fathers and sons will enjoy it.”-Archie Manning

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

The New York Times Bestseller!

"This is a wonderful book by a great writer.  All football fathers and sons will enjoy it."—Archie Manning

School Library Journal - Audio

06/01/2014
Gr 6 Up—In Granger, TX, everyone eats, sleeps, and breathes high school football, and the Cullen family is pigskin royalty. Jake Cullen is the youngest member of the Cullen "triad" that started with his superstar father and continued with his unbeatable brother. Now the quarterback legacy pressure is sitting squarely on his shoulders. Fast-paced sports action is mixed skillfully with a realistic coming-of-age story that unfolds easily in the audio format. Fans of sports radio will be especially captivated by the blow-by-blow descriptions of football plays. Even listeners with little interest in the sport will find themselves rooting for straight-A student and born leader Jake, largely owing to Nicolas Tecosky's convincing voicing that conveys both humility and insecurity through his soft, slightly drawn out Texas twang and his thoughtful pauses. Tecosky lowers and thickens his Texas accent for Jake's football-obsessed father, and is able to take it to the higher, lighter range for his tough but tender mother. This is sure to be a hit with sports-loving teens.—Shari Fesko, Southfield Public Library, MI

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171846503
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	09/17/2013
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	10 - 13 Years

Read an Excerpt

IF YOU WERE A HIGH SCHOOL QUARTERBACK, A TEXAS HIGH school quarterback, this was the moment you imagined for your­self from the first time somebody said you had some arm on you.
In your dreams.

And in Texas, usually your dad had dreamt all the best ones first.

Two minutes left, ball in your hands, game in your hands, sea­son in your hands. State championship on the line, the new 1AA championship for small schools like yours. One of those small-town, big-dream schools. Like you were the one in the book or the TV show and you were playing for Friday Night Lights High.

Only this was your school, the Granger High Cowboys, against Fort Carson, in Boone Stadium, the fancy new stadium at Texas State University.
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "QB 1"
by .
Copyright © 2013 Mike Lupica.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Young Readers Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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