From the Publisher
Could not put it down. It is so solid, and real, and true. Absolutely heroic. And something every guy should read.” — Jon Scieszka, bestselling author and National Ambassador for Young People's Literature emeritus
“I don’t know anyone — kid or adult — who won’t root heart and soul for Harrison. Unstoppable means you can’t put this book down!” — bestselling author Gordon Korman
“The star running back on his junior high school football team is diagnosed with cancer, teaching him the real meaning of bravery and determination.” — Los Angeles Times
With a sharp intensity fueled by both wrenching events and the main character’s white-hot core of rage, Green sends an abused foster kid blasting his way through daunting challenges on and off the football field. Harrison’s ferocious struggles with inner demons and physical obstacles make absorbing reading. — Booklist
|Los Angeles Times
The star running back on his junior high school football team is diagnosed with cancer, teaching him the real meaning of bravery and determination.
Jon Scieszka
Could not put it down. It is so solid, and real, and true. Absolutely heroic. And something every guy should read.
Booklist
With a sharp intensity fueled by both wrenching events and the main character’s white-hot core of rage, Green sends an abused foster kid blasting his way through daunting challenges on and off the football field. Harrison’s ferocious struggles with inner demons and physical obstacles make absorbing reading.
bestselling author Gordon Korman
I don’t know anyone — kid or adult — who won’t root heart and soul for Harrison. Unstoppable means you can’t put this book down!
Booklist
With a sharp intensity fueled by both wrenching events and the main character’s white-hot core of rage, Green sends an abused foster kid blasting his way through daunting challenges on and off the football field. Harrison’s ferocious struggles with inner demons and physical obstacles make absorbing reading.
Los Angeles Times
The star running back on his junior high school football team is diagnosed with cancer, teaching him the real meaning of bravery and determination.
Gordon Korman
I don’t know anyone — kid or adult — who won’t root heart and soul for Harrison. Unstoppable means you can’t put this book down!
School Library Journal - Audio
Gr 4–7—Tim Green reads his latest football story (HarperCollins, 2012) about an emotionally abused but athletically gifted 13-year-old. Staccato pacing coupled with distinct and persuasive descriptions of football characterize Green's style as both writer and narrator. A victim of the worse kind of foster parents, Harrison is essentially enslaved until a freak accident and an exceptionally kind counselor get him placed in a foster home with a childless couple who always wanted a boy like him. As new parents, the Kelly's patience and unconditional love toward Harrison are almost as unlikely as their convenient occupations as junior high football coach and lawyer. Once his life improves, Harrison is sure his good fortune can't last and waits for his regular bad luck to recur. And it does, in the form of bone cancer that requires the amputation of his leg the week before his football team is set to compete in the state championship. Harrison's anger, frustration, and pain are tangible. The Kelly's friend, Major Bauer, who has a similar amputation, comes to train Harrison to deal with his handicap and redevelop his athletic prowess. While Major Bauer and Ms. Kelly argue about giving Harrison false hope that he can play football again, Harrison must find his own peace. Green's narration is well-paced and engaging. Although the story is melodramatic and stretches the suspension of disbelief, it will attract sports fans.—Janet Thompson, West Belmont Branch Library, Chicago Public Library, IL
OCTOBER 2012 - AudioFile
Author and narrator Tim Green gives a compelling performance in this moving story about 13-year-old Harrison. Green effectively contrasts the terse, loud voices of Harrison’s abusive foster parents with the gentle tenderness of his new family. Harrison’s stint as a star football player for his junior high school team is cut short when a routine knee injury leads to shocking news—and the biggest obstacle of his young life. Green deftly transitions his tone of voice as Harrison moves slowly from grief and anger to optimism. Inspired by his wife’s battle with cancer, Green’s story and reading are genuine and persuasive. M.F. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
Harrison has led a hard-knock life up until he's taken in by loving foster parents "Coach" and Jennifer. After he inadvertently causes the man's death, Harrison is taken from a brutal foster home run by a farmer who uses foster kids as unpaid labor, a situation blithely ignored by the county. His new foster parents are different. Coach is in charge of the middle school football team, and all 13-year-old Harrison has ever wanted to do is to play football, the perfect outlet for his seething undercurrent of anger at life. Oversized for his age, he's brilliant at the game but also over-the-top aggressive, until a hit makes his knee start aching--and then life deals him another devastating blow. The pain isn't an injury but bone cancer. Many of the characters--loving friends Justin and Becky, bully Leo, a mean-spirited math teacher, cancer victim Marty and the major, an amputee veteran who comes to rehabilitate Harrison after life-changing surgery--are straight out of the playbook for maudlin middle-grade fiction. Nevertheless, this effort edges above trite because of well-depicted football scenes and the sheer force of Harrison himself. His altogether believable anger diminishes his likability but breathes life into an otherwise stock role. A predictable, fast-paced sports tale with some unexpected heart. (Fiction. 11-14)
