Prolific sportswriter Mike Lupica has landed a book deal with Scholastic to write a middle-grade series that covers football, basketball and baseball through the adventures of reoccurring characters.
Esther Newberg from International Creative Management negotiated the deal with Scholastic Paperbacks, Non-fiction and Licensing publisher Debra Dorfman. The series will launch in May 2012 with Game Changers, a novel focused on football. Lupica (pictured, via) has written many books, including the young adult novels, Travel Team, Heat, Miracle on 49th Street, and Summer Ball.
Lupica explained the series in the release: “My love of reading really started with the great Chip Hilton series, written by Clair Bee … The books were about Chip and his buddies, and also about the things that are the most important themes of my books for young readers: Friendship and loyalty and teamwork. I’ve always had it in the back of my mind to write a series that would go from season to season, and now I’m lucky enough to do that for Scholastic, writing about a special kid named Ben McBain and his pals. Mostly I’m trying to do the same thing I’ve been doing since Travel Team, which means write the kind of books that I wanted to read as a boy.”