Akron Public Library

"Simone takes you through the events, challenges, and trials that carried her from an early childhood in foster care to a coveted spot on the 2016 Olympic team" --

In this novel, the careers of a golden boy rookie hitter for the Cubs and a hard-hitting Mets pitcher take very different paths. The baseball is thrilling, but it is what happens off the field that makes this story a classic.

Coach Archer is down on his luck and this coming season may be his last unless he turns things around. He goes to Africa for a vacation and discovers Nanu, the greatest athlete in the world. If Archer can get him back to America, he can save his job.

Meet Jesse Owens, an African American runner who won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin! What made his achievement even more memorable was that Adolph Hitler expected the Olympic Games to be a German showcase. In fact, he criticized the United States for even including black athletes on its Olympic roster. According to many reports, after Owens won his fourth gold medal, Hitler stormed out of the stadium. In 1936 Jesse Owens took a stand...

Peyton Lockhart and her sisters have conditionally inherited an oceanfront resort. The girls must run it for one year and show a profit before they will own it. There are countless challenges and too many people who want to stop the sisters from succeeding. Among them are cousins who are outraged that they didn't inherit the resort, as well as a powerful group of land developers who have been eyeing the coveted beachfront property. It's soon apparent...

A year ago, Travis McKinley, an unknown golfing amateur, shocked the world by winning the PGA Senior Open at Pebble Beach. Now he's famous, he makes his living playing the game he loves, and everything should be perfect. Still Travis can't shake the feeling that he's a fraud, an imposter who doesn't deserve his success -- and after a series of disappointments and, to be honest, personal screw-ups, he might just prove himself right. A shot at redemption...

The young Olympic gold-winning gymnast describes her life and career, covering her loving family, her rigorous training, her intense sacrifices, and her amazing triumphs.

On a May afternoon in 1943, an American military plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane���s bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary sagas of the Second World War. The lieutenant���s name...

Brandon Burlsworth is perhaps the greatest walk-on in the history of college football. Brandon had always dreamed of playing for the Arkansas Razorbacks, but was considered too short and too fat to play Division I. However, Brandon took a risk and walked on in 1994. Written off by fellow teammates and coaches, Brandon displayed dogged determination in the face of staggering odds, and proved every one who had ever doubted him wrong.