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Sports Shorts
Presents a collection of eight short stories of victories and defeats in various sports, including karate, track, wrestling, baseball, basketball, and football.
128 pages, Paperback
First published June 20, 2005
3 people are currently reading
42 people want to read
About the author
Joseph Bruchac
279 books597 followersJoseph Bruchac lives with his wife, Carol, in the Adirondack mountain foothills town of Greenfield Center, New York, in the same house where his maternal grandparents raised him. Much of his writing draws on that land and his Abenaki ancestry. Although his American Indian heritage is only one part of an ethnic background that includes Slovak and English blood, those Native roots are the ones by which he has been most nourished. He, his younger sister Margaret, and his two grown sons, James and Jesse, continue to work extensively in projects involving the preservation of Abenaki culture, language and traditional Native skills, including performing traditional and contemporary Abenaki music with the Dawnland Singers.
He holds a B.A. from Cornell University, an M.A. in Literature and Creative Writing from Syracuse and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the Union Institute of Ohio. His work as a educator includes eight years of directing a college program for Skidmore College inside a maximum security prison. With his wife, Carol, he is the founder and Co-Director of the Greenfield Review Literary Center and The Greenfield Review Press. He has edited a number of highly praised anthologies of contemporary poetry and fiction, including Songs from this Earth on Turtle's Back, Breaking Silence (winner of an American Book Award) and Returning the Gift. His poems, articles and stories have appeared in over 500 publications, from American Poetry Review, Cricket and Aboriginal Voices to National Geographic, Parabola and Smithsonian Magazine. He has authored more than 70 books for adults and children, including The First Strawberries, Keepers of the Earth (co-authored with Michael Caduto), Tell Me a Tale, When the Chenoo Howls (co-authored with his son, James), his autobiography Bowman's Store and such novels as Dawn Land, The Waters Between, Arrow Over the Door and The Heart of a Chief. Forthcoming titles include Squanto's Journey (Harcourt), a picture book, Sacajawea (Harcourt), an historical novel, Crazy Horse's Vision (Lee & Low), a picture book, and Pushing Up The Sky (Dial), a collection of plays for children. His honors include a Rockefeller Humanities fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Writing Fellowship for Poetry, the Cherokee Nation Prose Award, the Knickerbocker Award, the Hope S. Dean Award for Notable Achievement in Children's Literature and both the 1998 Writer of the Year Award and the 1998 Storyteller of the Year Award from the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers. In 1999, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas.
As a professional teller of the traditional tales of the Adirondacks and the Native peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, Joe Bruchac has performed widely in Europe and throughout the United States from Florida to Hawaii and has been featured at such events as the British Storytelling Festival and the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesboro, Tennessee. He has been a storyteller-in-residence for Native American organizations and schools throughout the continent, including the Institute of Alaska Native Arts and the Onondaga Nation School. He discusses Native culture and his books and does storytelling programs at dozens of elementary and secondary schools each year as a visiting author.
He holds a B.A. from Cornell University, an M.A. in Literature and Creative Writing from Syracuse and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the Union Institute of Ohio. His work as a educator includes eight years of directing a college program for Skidmore College inside a maximum security prison. With his wife, Carol, he is the founder and Co-Director of the Greenfield Review Literary Center and The Greenfield Review Press. He has edited a number of highly praised anthologies of contemporary poetry and fiction, including Songs from this Earth on Turtle's Back, Breaking Silence (winner of an American Book Award) and Returning the Gift. His poems, articles and stories have appeared in over 500 publications, from American Poetry Review, Cricket and Aboriginal Voices to National Geographic, Parabola and Smithsonian Magazine. He has authored more than 70 books for adults and children, including The First Strawberries, Keepers of the Earth (co-authored with Michael Caduto), Tell Me a Tale, When the Chenoo Howls (co-authored with his son, James), his autobiography Bowman's Store and such novels as Dawn Land, The Waters Between, Arrow Over the Door and The Heart of a Chief. Forthcoming titles include Squanto's Journey (Harcourt), a picture book, Sacajawea (Harcourt), an historical novel, Crazy Horse's Vision (Lee & Low), a picture book, and Pushing Up The Sky (Dial), a collection of plays for children. His honors include a Rockefeller Humanities fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Writing Fellowship for Poetry, the Cherokee Nation Prose Award, the Knickerbocker Award, the Hope S. Dean Award for Notable Achievement in Children's Literature and both the 1998 Writer of the Year Award and the 1998 Storyteller of the Year Award from the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers. In 1999, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas.
As a professional teller of the traditional tales of the Adirondacks and the Native peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, Joe Bruchac has performed widely in Europe and throughout the United States from Florida to Hawaii and has been featured at such events as the British Storytelling Festival and the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesboro, Tennessee. He has been a storyteller-in-residence for Native American organizations and schools throughout the continent, including the Institute of Alaska Native Arts and the Onondaga Nation School. He discusses Native culture and his books and does storytelling programs at dozens of elementary and secondary schools each year as a visiting author.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
March 8, 2014
A nice collection to share with kids. It will spark their own sports-related stories.
May 12, 2008
Sport Shorts, a fictional collection of short stories, is a great book if you’re looking for a fun novel to read. Sport Shorts is a collection of sports stories with a twist. Instead of writing about professional sports stories, this novel contains stories about unathletic kids. These kids and young adults sometimes rise to the occasion and become heroic and other times fall short. One good example is the story “Bombardment”
In “Bombardment”, written by Joseph Bruchac, The main character, whose name we do know, loves to play dodge ball or Bombardment at recess. Although he is not very good, he plays everyday. One day the teacher chooses him as a captain. He chooses a good team and as the game is winding down only he and two others remain on his side, one of which is the best player that the school has. The tree guys all get out but the main character is very proud.
This story’s, “Bombardment” characters were fantastic. They were very life-like and the ones I got to know were likable. The plot was great. It was original and exciting. This story kept me on the edge of my seat and, along with being a great reflection of the whole collection, was my favorite short story by far. The writing the author used was great he gave great descriptions of the game and he gave great descriptions of the characters.
I would recommend this book to anyone in the Junior High looking for a fun sports book to read. This book was a lot of fun to read and had great writing and descriptions.
Words: 271
In “Bombardment”, written by Joseph Bruchac, The main character, whose name we do know, loves to play dodge ball or Bombardment at recess. Although he is not very good, he plays everyday. One day the teacher chooses him as a captain. He chooses a good team and as the game is winding down only he and two others remain on his side, one of which is the best player that the school has. The tree guys all get out but the main character is very proud.
This story’s, “Bombardment” characters were fantastic. They were very life-like and the ones I got to know were likable. The plot was great. It was original and exciting. This story kept me on the edge of my seat and, along with being a great reflection of the whole collection, was my favorite short story by far. The writing the author used was great he gave great descriptions of the game and he gave great descriptions of the characters.
I would recommend this book to anyone in the Junior High looking for a fun sports book to read. This book was a lot of fun to read and had great writing and descriptions.
Words: 271
August 10, 2013
Cute overall. A lot of these stories would help to teach voice in writing, as well as building suspense. Great themes for people on all places of the sports abilities spectrum. I found the stories at the beginning and middle to be better than the ones at the end, just personal taste. My students will love this newly acquired book in our class library!
April 7, 2008
I don’t like this book
November 9, 2011
Sports Fanatic you should read this!filled with exciting sports stories, from riding on bikes with mom to volley ball.
May 1, 2017
Fun short tales depicting the highs and lows of an athletic adventure.
September 26, 2019
This is a nice, easy book about children who have a variety of experiences on the sports field.
January 24, 2020
My favorite short story of them all was the first one!
September 2, 2014
I think this book is confusing but a page turner at the same time. Confusing because in every chapter the story changes but a page turner book because all stories are really exciting. At first I didn't know that the story always changes in a new chapter because, the first chapter is talking about a kid named Joseph Bruchac and then the second chapter is talking about his child. So I assumed that it was all about the life of Joseph but in the third chapter the character completely changes. It doesn't have anything related to Joseph or his child. I really enjoy the part when Joseph almost won a really intense game of dodge in PE because Joseph was a kid that hardly knew how to socialize, so he didn't have friends but after that game, the other kids starting accepting him in to the group. I didn't enjoy that every chapter the story changes, because I really enjoyed every chapter and I wanted every chapter to be a whole separate book. I don't really know who would enjoy this book, It depends if he or she likes many stories in one book but in my opinion is a really good book. The main theme in this book is sports. Every chapter is related to a different sport, In the first chapter the sport is dodge ball and in the second one is hockey. I really enjoyed this book, hopefully the next book I choose will be as good as this one.
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October 6, 2013this is a great book for me and I think that this story has some humor to it! this is about the authors thoughts a outs sports when they were kids and my favorite short story so far is "finishing blocks and deadly hook shots" which is about a young basket ball player that has some humor and humility!
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews