Without Mom

by David Ravenwood

Ever since his mother died, David Sinclair, a tenth grader, can’t seem to finish anything he starts. After his alcoholic father gripes about all the money he’s blown on Karate lessons, tennis lessons, and several other things for his son that came to nothing, David decides to try out for the Heather Heights High School football team as a placekicker. Their star player, Glenn Samson, believes nothing matters but football. David has always admired Glenn and starts thinking the same way. Although he’s never kicked a football in his life, he sticks with it—lifting an old abandoned telephone pole lying on the ground on the huge lot behind his house over and over to gain strength, and practicing until his foot can boot the ball fifty yards. But being a football hero costs a precious price, threatening to ruin his football career before it even gets started. Can David recover from that cost? And will the lessons learned eventually carry him to a much sweeter victory that takes him beyond football?

236 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2012

About the author

David Ravenwood was educated at the University of Texas at Arlington, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Communications and a teaching certificate in elementary education. He has taught in the Texas public schools since 1998. He is now retired and subs part time. He enjoys walking, going to the gym, reading, and good movies. David and his wife, Steffie, were married in 1995. She helps with the administrative work for his novels and discusses story ideas with him. David started writing sporadically at sixteen years of age and could never figure out why he didn’t write on a regular basis. At forty-one it snapped into place and he has written regularly ever since. He realized the type of stories he writes, even his novels for children, require a perspective that comes after forty years of living life.

David and Steffie live in Texas with their two cats, Fred and Felix.