Home of the Braves

What makes an average American high school suddenly become violent?
As Joe Brickman heads into the fall of his senior year, he's looking forward to the soccer season, when he will captain the Lawndale team. And surely this will be the year when he and his neighbor Kristine stop teasing each other and begin dating. But scary, unpredictable things start happening at Lawndale High. It's hard to tell what touches off the storm. Is it the arrival of Antonio Silva, a.k.a. the Phenom, a Brazilian soccer star who transforms the Lawndale Braves into a contender, and in doing so clashes with football players? Is it the shake-up of the social order in the school, when the Phenom starts dating Kris, and soccer becomes the "in" sport? Is it the brutal humiliation of Joe's best friend, Ed "the Mouse" McBean, and is Ed planning on taking some dark revenge on the entire school? Perhaps it's all of these new twists, and something older. As violence and danger escalate and school officials clamp down with zero tolerance, Joe finds himself searching for the courage to break free from the forces that threaten to take him down with the home of the Braves.
In his powerful and timely new novel, David Klass dramatizes the many ways in which past violence returns to haunt the present.

As Joe Brickman heads into his senior year, he's looking forward to soccer season and dating Kristine. But scary, unpredictable things start happening at Lawndale High, as past violence returns to haunt the present.

That was the truth I came to in that long and frozen moment. This was my life. Not the life of any of the people around me, clamoring for blood, but mine. I had to make the decision, and I had to make it now, or it would be made for me.

David Klass is the author of six other young adult novels, including the ALA Notable books Wrestling with HonorM and California Blue. He has also written a number of screenplays, including Kiss the Girls and Desperate Measures. This is his first book with HarperCollins.