Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team

America's favorite sport and Native American history collide in this thrilling true story for middle-grade readers, about one of the nation's greatest football teams.

When superstar athlete Jim Thorpe and football legend Pop Warner met in 1904 at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, they forged one of the winningest teams in American football history. Called “the team that invented football,” they took on the best opponents of their day, defeating much more privileged schools such as Harvard and the Army in a series of breathtakingly close calls, genius plays, and bone-crushing hard work.

But this is not just an underdog story. It's an unflinching look at the persecution of Native Americans and its intersection with the beginning of one of the most beloved—and exploitative—pastimes in America, expertly told by nonfiction powerhouse Steve Sheinkin.

Steve Sheinkin is the award-winning author of fast-paced, cinematic histories for young readers. His books include The Notorious Benedict Arnold, winner of the Boston-Globe Horn Book Award for Nonfiction; Bomb: the Race to Build—and Steal—the World's Most Dangerous Weapon, a Newbery Honor Book and a National Book Award Finalist; The Port Chicago 50, winner of the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award for Nonfiction and a National Book Award Finalist; and Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War, another National Book Award Finalist.