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Button Down

by Anne Ylvisaker

Narrator Sanjiv Jhaveri

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Length 2 hours 54 minutes

Language English

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Summary
About the author

Ever since local boy Lester Ward got drafted by the University of Iowa Hawkeyes and football fever hit Goodhue, Iowa, scrawny Ned Button can think of nothing but the game. Sure, Lester’s younger bully of a brother is determined to keep Ned and his gang from ever getting near a real pickup game. But Ned has a few tricks up his sleeve: he can catch and sometimes even throw, much to his surprise. And he’s got his eccentric grandpa Ike, who has less get-up-and-go these days but no shortage of down-home wisdom to pass along. Like that being a football star is less about being big and more about strategy and playing as part of a team. And that having friends and family in your corner is a bigger prize than a lucky football will ever be.

From the acclaimed author of The Luck of the Buttons comes another story about a sometimes hapless, always winning family that scores big points for humor and heart.

Children's

Anne Ylvisaker is the author of Dear Papa, which Booklist named a Top Ten First Novel for Youth; Little Klein, a Book Sense Children’s Pick and winner of numerous awards, including the Midwest Booksellers’ Choice Award; and The Luck of the Buttons, an Indie Next List Selection. About Button Down, the second book to feature the Button family, she says, “When Ned confessed, in The Luck of the Buttons, that he couldn’t catch a football but still liked to play, I recognized a piece of my childhood. In my neighborhood, we played countless games of baseball in the alley, soccer on the median, and football in front yards. While I couldn’t hit, throw, catch, or kick, I loved those seconds of suspense after a ball was launched and victory was yet possible. For me, it never was, but what about Ned? I put a ball in the air and Ned on the field and wrote to find out what happened.” Formerly of Iowa and Minnesota, Anne Ylvisaker now lives in California with her family.