It's How We Play the Game by Ed Stack

IT'S HOW WE PLAY THE GAME by Ed Stack is the story of the founding and growth of DICK’S Sporting Goods company. Stack begins with tales of how the company was founded in Binghamton, New York with $300 from his dad’s grandmother’s cookie jar.  Throughout, he stresses the importance of family and the impact that family members had on each other.  For example, he writes about his father’s love of sport and how he encouraged Ed to really study and analyze the game of baseball. The idea of taking care of the local community was also always important and Stack says, “[my dad] was making a difference … before I knew it was happening … my dad understood the transcendence of sports – that they can channel kids’ energies, give them focus and goals, keep them out of trouble, reshape their lives.  … He was willing to reach into his own pocket.” Stack has carried forward that legacy and frankly, shocked me with some of the statistics he cited: “In the 1999-2000 school year, 11.3 percent of public high schools in the United States did not offer interscholastic sports. By ten years later, 22 percent of public high schools – more than one in five – no longer fielded sports teams.” Of those that did, forty percent required fees from the players and their families. To raise awareness, Stack began a number of programs including the Sports Matters Initiative. This book chronicles those efforts as well as changes in the business, such as decisions to expand, and DICK’S principled relationships with landlords like Wegman’s and suppliers like Callaway. In addition, you may have read recently in The New York Times or USA Today about how DICK’S destroyed about $5 million in inventory of assault style guns in response to the shooting in Parkland, Florida. The thinking and strategy behind implementing that decision is included in this text, too. Recommended by Adam Silver, Phil Knight, Mark Kelly and others, IT'S HOW WE PLAY THE GAME is definitely worth a read, particularly in light of the shift from shareholder to stakeholder perspective amongst US businesses, as evidenced by the change in Business Roundtable’s mission statement.  

An American Summer by Alex Kotlowitz

AN AMERICAN SUMMER by Alex Kotlowitz: Our incoming students have read There Are No Children Here as part of the curriculum for more than a decade and this new work, sadly, offers additional impressions of “Love and Death in Chicago.” Kotlowittz writes, “consider that in Chicago, the police have tried community policing, SWAT teams, data to predict shooters, full saturation of troubled neighborhoods, efforts to win over gang members. And the shootings continue. … What works? After twenty years of funerals and hospital visits, I don’t feel like I’m much closer to knowing.”  Instead, in AN AMERICAN SUMMER, he seeks to share stories of those involved in the violence of “how amid the devastation, many still manage to stay erect in a world that’s slumping around them.  How, despite the bloodshed, some manage, heroically, not only to push on but also to push back.” The violence and despair is hard to read at times, but there is resilience, too, as Kotlowitz profiles twenty days, including Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, during the summer of 2013. The work is based on interviews with roughly 200 people over several years, reflections on his time embedded in a homicide unit, and numerous visits to homes, workplaces, jails, and court rooms.  AN AMERICAN SUMMER received starred reviews from Booklist, Kirkus, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly.

The Hotel Between and People Kill People

Here are some quick thoughts on two young adult novels which were published in early September.  

THE HOTEL BETWEEN by Sean Easley is an exciting fantasy centered on twins Cameron and Cassia who want to find their missing Dad. The chance comes when Cam discovers The Hotel Between, a mystical place with “four main rings that make up the trunk – Lobby Level, Elevator Bank, Mezzanine, Courtyard. Everything else branches off those by way of turners, which is just what we call doors binding one part of the Hotel to another.”  And it is through those doors that Cam and various guides like Nico and Rahki magically explore other countries, face danger and confront secrets. School Library Journal recommends this novel for middle school students and it is certainly complicated (and sometimes confusing!) enough to appeal to readers who enjoy fantasy and adventure, as Cam seeks to find both his father and a cure for Cassia’s spina bifida.

PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE by Ellen Hopkins is written in verse and focuses on six Arizona teenagers who deal with gun violence and white supremacy. School Library Journal suggests this novel for those in grades 10 and up.  In fact, Violence narrates this text, leaving the reader to guess which of the intertwined teens will kill and who will die. Hopkins explores several timely topics (brain injury, attitudes towards undocumented immigrants, depression, drug dealing, and more) which will resonate with teen and new adult readers while showing how "each [character] possesses an incentive/ to pick up a gun, pull the trigger." A powerful and thought-provoking text from an award-winning and popular novelist.