Las Animas - Bent County Library District

"When a car crash sidelines Mickey just before softball season, she has to find a way to hold on to her spot as the catcher for a team expected to make a historic tournament run. Behind the plate is the only place she's ever felt comfortable, and the painkillers she's been prescribed can help her get there. The pills do more than take away pain; they make her feel good. With a new circle of friends--fellow injured athletes, others with just time...

After an injury forces Ria off the diving team she forms an unexpected friendship with Cotton, a neuro-divergent boy who helps her to see that Coach Benny's training methods were actually abuse. Then Benny returns, offering Ria a second chance with a life-changing diving opportunity. How do you separate the impossible from possible when the one thing you love is so tangled up in the thing you fear most?

In 1971, a small-town high school baseball team from rural Illinois playing with hand-me-down uniforms and peace signs on their hats defied convention and the odds. Led by an English teacher with no coaching experience, the Macon Ironmen emerged from a field of 370 teams to become the smallest school in Illinois history to make the state final, a distinction that still stands. There, sporting long hair, and warming up to Jesus Christ Superstar, the...

"In the summer of 1942, the federal government forced 120,000 Japanese Americans from their homes in California, Oregon, Washington, and Arizona and sent them to incarceration camps across the West. Eleven thousand of them landed on the outskirts of the Wild West town of Cody, Wyoming, at the base of Heart Mountain. Heart Mountain Relocation Center would be their home for the next three years. They eked out a life, establishing Buddhist temples, digging...

"The story of a young man from small-town Iowa who decided to take his own life rather than continue his losing battle against the traumatic brain injuries (CTE) he had sustained as a no-holds-barred high school football player, and at the same time a larger story about the hot-button issues that football raises about masculinity and violence, and about what values we want to instill in our kids"--

It's always been Stevie McCrae's goal to play running back at University of Texas-Austin. But because of his size, Stevie never gets recognition from recruiters. Despite gaudy numbers and state rushing records, his only scholarship offers have come from out-of-state Division Two schools. But if Stevie can lead his team to a state title, his dream of attending the University of Texas might be within reach. Austin is from Texas Fridays, an EPIC Press...

"When star soccer player Peyton Rios receives an offer from her first-choice college, senior year starts off exactly as planned...until she uncovers her boyfriends dark secret. Peyton confronts him and finds herself falling down a flight of stairs. Her knee-and possibly her dream of going pro-is shattered. Everyone at school is talking: Was she pushed, or did she fall? Peyton knows the truth, even if no one believes her. With her future on the line,...

"In 'Heart of a student athlete,' Karl Mecklenburg--former All-Pro captain of the Denver Broncos-- offers young athletes and their families inspirational advice about how to dream, achieve, and overcome obstacles on their way to success. Mecklenburg's candid, anecdotal counsel will motivate student athletes to aim high, work hard, and meet challenges with strength and courage--including pressure to perform in the game, emphasis on sport over study,...

Darren Taylor is an all-state defensive end on one of the top teams in Houston. Only football promises to take him away from his gang-filled neighborhood in Houston's Third Ward. But during a preseason scrimmage, Darren tears up his right shoulder, taking him out for the season. The sudden uncertainty sends Darren into a spiral, leading to an addiction to pain pills that threatens to end his football career--and, maybe, his life.

Based on a true story, a high school girls' volleyball team must pull together and compete after the sudden death of their star player.