On the Line

Fred Bowen Sports Story Series

by Fred Bowen

Worried that his inability to make free throws is making his junior high basketball team lose games, Marcus learns an unconventional underhand shooting method from a friendly custodian but is not sure he wants to use it. Includes a history chapter discussing great basketball players who have used the underhand toss.Worried that his inability to make free throws is making his junior high basketball team lose games, Marcus learns an unconventional underhand shooting method from a friendly custodian but is not sure he wants to use it

Genres: Sports

103 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1999

About the author

Fred Bowen is the author of Peachtree’s popular Fred Bowen Sports Story and All-Star Sport Story series. A lifelong sports fanatic, he has coached youth league baseball, basketball, and soccer. His kids’ sports column “The Score” appears each week in the KidsPost section of the Washington Post. Bowen lives in Maryland.

Reviews

[Deborah Schultz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a good, clean book for kids. I enjoyed it, in spite of it being about basketball. The main theme of it is a boy's struggle to overcome a weakness. He is really good at playing basketball, but cannot make foul shots. He is embarrassed about this, and loses games for his teams because of it. He doesn't play hard after that because he is worried he'll be fouled and embarrassed again. He gets help from the custodian, but it takes him awhile to accept it because he is a custodian and because he thinks he's weird. Once he learns, he struggles with actually shooting underhand because people make fun of him. I really enjoyed him growing to accept the help, not care what other's thought, and start making foul shots. It includes a few pages at the end of history of basketball players - one who did the granny shot, one who did an odd underhanded, one handed shot, and another who tried a variety of methods and never could make foul shots because he wouldn't do the granny shot.

[Brody Spurlock]

This book is about Marcus the best player on the basketball team. His only weakness was his foul shots.He tried his hardest but he couldn't make one. One game if he would have made them they would have won. But he missed both. So now he is scared to go up strong and get fouled because he has not found a soultion yet. So he asked his dad Mr.Devay if he could use the high school gym and his dad asked Mr.Dunn the janiter and he was fine with it. After a few months of getting to know him Marcus found his soulution. Mr.Dunn showed him to do it underhand like Rick Barry. He made every shot so now he is in the championship because Mr.Dunn showed him. Mr.Dunn had the same problems as Marcus.He was the hot rod dunn except for free throws.

[Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the book On The Line the story's about a boy who plays basketball but wasn't good at free-throws. The boy had join the basketball team freshmen year in high-school. During a game he had got fouled to shoot free-throws to win the game for his team, but when he shoot he missed both. When the boy went home he always shot 100 free-throws before bed. It was the championship game and he was in the same predicament as last time, however this time he made them both and his coach was so proud of him the boy said “ practice makes perfect”. Recommending the book On The Line could turnout having people to like it. It's a good connection to have with this book because it's so good.