The End Zone

My First Graphic Novel

by Lori Mortensen, Mary Sullivan (Illustrator)

Olivia is fast, strong, and can catch. She loves flag football, but the boys won't let her play. Find out if Olivia ever gets to play flag football.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Childrens, Sports

25 pages, Library Binding

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Lori Mortensen is an award-winning children's author of more than 100 books. Her books, which reviewers have praised as “stellar” “as good as it gets” and “begs to be read aloud,” have been published by such notable publishers as HarperCollins, Henry Holt, Abrams, Bloomsbury, and Peachtree. Popular releases include, Arlo Draws an Octopus, illustrated by NYT bestselling author/illustrator Rob Sayegh, Jr., If Wendell Had a Walrus, illustrated by NYT bestselling author/illustrator Matt Phelan, Cowpoke Clyde Rides the Range, a Bill Martin Jr., Picture Book Award Nominee and the sequel to Amazon bestseller Cowpoke Clyde and Dirty Dawg, and picture book biographies Nonsense! The Curious Story of Edward Gorey and Away with Words, the Daring True Story of Explorer Isabella Bird.
When she’s not greeting geese at the lake, or putting her nose in a mystery, she’s tapping away at her keyboard, conjuring, coaxing, and prodding her latest stories to life. Today, she lives in the foothills of Northern California with her family and all birds that flock to her feeder—including a gluttonous squirrel.

Reviews

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Olivia wants to play on the flag football team, but the boys won’t let her. Until one day when Aiden is sick, so they don’t have enough players. At first, Olivia makes a mistake, but then she intercepts the ball and scores a touchdown. Now she plays all the time.

[Malissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I decided I wanted to read some graphic novels to see what demands the text puts on a reader. Graphic novels get a bad reputation and I wanted to see what my take is. This is a lower grade graphic novel, very simply written. I love that at the beginning of the book it give instructions on how to read a graphic novel. There are pretty good discussion questions at the end. The writing prompts aren't so hot! Whatever hooks kids into reading is okay with me.

[Meadow · Rating 3 out of 5]

More from the graphic novel section of the children's library. We are close to having read all of the age-appropriate ones.

[Donna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a whole lot here, but I am looking for something different for my young reader to check out. We're checking out football this week.

[RLL 220 Selena Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it! So many features can be noticed in this book. One thing is it is multicultural (generic). Children of more than one race can see someone that looks like them in the pictures. Secondly, it gives attention to a real gender issue adolescents have. Thirdly, the graphic help tell the story with it's facial expressions and eye signals. Of course there are other things in this book that makes it worth reading to children, even in the way he book starts.

This book starts by introducing graphic novels to children. It explains what graphic novels are and how to read them. Then it goes right into the story. The author gives us a little background Olivia the main character and her dilemma. She is someone who likes reading, writing, but most of all football. Her dilemma is the boys never let her join. Olivia is not happy about this an expression brought out through the illustrator. She doesn't understand why girls can't play football. One day one of the boys couldn't play, so she got her chance to prove that a girl can play football and she did!

I would recommend this for K-2nd grade