Jason Reynolds is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, recipient of the MacArthur Genius Grant, a Newbery Award Honoree, a Printz Award Honoree, a two-time National Book Award finalist, a 2024 MacArthur Fellow, a Kirkus Award winner, a UK Carnegie Medal winner, a two-time Walter Dean Myers Award winner, an NAACP Image Award Winner, an Odyssey Award Winner and two-time honoree, and the recipient of multiple Coretta Scott King honors, a Coretta Scott King Author Award, and the Margaret A. Edwards Award. He was also the 2020-2022 National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. His many books include All American Boys (cowritten with Brendan Kiely); When I Was the Greatest; The Boy in the Black Suit; Stamped; As Brave as You; For Every One; the Track series (Ghost, Patina, Sunny, Lu, and Coach); Look Both Ways; Stuntboy, in the Meantime; Stuntboy, In-Between Time; Miles Morales Suspended; Ain't Burned All the Bright (recipient of the Caldecott Honor) and My Name Is Jason. Mine Too. (both cowritten with Jason Griffin); Twenty-Four Seconds from Now...; and Long Way Down, which received a Newbery Honor, a Printz Honor, and a Coretta Scott King Honor. His debut picture book, There Was a Party for Langston, won a Caldecott Honor and a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor. He lives in Washington, DC. You can find his ramblings at JasonWritesBooks.com.

"Reynolds is a master at hooking even the most reluctant of readers with witty and conversational dialogue that will have tweens feeling like they're on the track or in the classroom with Otie. Reynolds poignantly portrays how addiction affects families, including the cycle of improvement and relapses, and the role community plays. Otie learns life lessons from Coach Marvin; it's not the shoes, but who is in the shoes that matters. [...] A stellar companion novel about one tween's struggles and ambitions that can stand alone but will have newer readers sprinting to the rest of the books in this excellent series."--School Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW "10/3/25"

Reynolds does a remarkable job of using pop culture references--from Michael Jackson to Back to the Future--to establish a sense of time and place. As always, his command of language is masterly, with crackling dialogue, propulsive plotting, and adroit characterization: Readers will emerge with a rich portrait of the forces that created the man whose mentorship would have a powerful effect on so many young people. A beautifully executed victory lap for a beloved series. --Kirkus STARRED Review "November 15, 2025 Issue"

Middle-school athletes Ghost, Lu, Patina, and Sunny each have their own titles in Reynolds's Track series (most recently Lu, rev. 11/18); now it's Coach's turn. Who was he before he was an inspiring leader? How did he grow up to be so committed to his athletes' lives? [..] In Ghost, sprinter Castle Cranshaw says of his troubled home life, "You don't know what it's like, Coach. You don't know." But in this installment, we learn that Coach Brody does know. At the conclusion of the story, when young Otie is talking about his Olympic dreams, his mother says, "I think you gon' make it. But if for some reason you don't, guess what? I think you'd make a pretty good coach." A strong entry in the series that provides backstory for the coach who has been there from the beginning.--Horn Book Starred Review "November/December 2025"

Publisher: Atheneum Books

Pub date: 2025-10-14

Length: 176 pages