Fantasy Leauge by Mike Lupica
From the #1 bestselling author of Heat, Travel Team and Million-Dollar Throw comes a story of every football kid’s dream come true.
12-year-old Charlie is a fantasy football guru. He may be just a bench warmer for his school’s football team, but when it comes to knowing and loving the game, he’s first-string. He even becomes a celebrity when his podcast gets noticed by a sports radio host, who plays Charlie’s fantasy picks for all of Los Angeles to hear. Soon Charlie befriends the elderly owner of the L.A. Bulldogs — a fictional NFL team — and convinces him to take a chance on an aging quarterback. After that, watch out . . . it’s press conferences and national fame as Charlie becomes a media curiosity and source of conflict for the Bulldogs general manager, whose job Charlie seems to have taken. It’s all a bit much for a kid just trying to stay on top of his grades and maintain his friendship with his verbal sparring partner, Anna.
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My Thoughts – Loved it
Charlie is stuck on the bench again, but he is a quick study on which plays and players get the best results, so when he turns his quirk into a Fantasy Football league podcast. His best friend that shares his love of football intoduces him to her grandfather, Joe. Joe just happens to own the LA team, the Bulldogs that have stats in the gutter. Joe has nothing to lose when he starts to listen to Charlies strategies. I loved the interplay between Anna and Charlie. As Charlie starts making right picks in his fantasy team, Anna’s Unlce Matt and also the manager of the Bulldogs, starts to pay attention to Charlie’s ideas., as his pod cast becomes popular.
Charlie is unsure of all the attnetion is his getting since he still wants to do well in school and this is taking up too much of his time. Anna is also struggling because Joe is ill and the relationship between Matt and Joe is strained. Under all of this, Charlie longs for the attention of his absent father. Overall, this is a great story about the inner workings of the fantasy football leagues and how intense they can become.
