Away, Running

In this novel for teens, Matt and Free meet in Paris where they both play American football on a team in a poverty-stricken suburb where racial tension affects the team. Matt, a white quarterback from Montreal, Quebec, flies to France (without his parents' permission) to play football and escape family pressure. Freeman, a black football player from San Antonio, Texas, is in Paris on a school trip when he hears about a team playing American football in a rough, low-income suburb called Villeneuve-La-Grande. Matt and Free join the Diables Rouges and make friends with the other players, who come from many different ethnic groups. Racial tension erupts into riots in Villeneuve when some of their Muslim teammates get in trouble with the police, and Matt and Free have to decide whether to get involved and face the very real risk of arrest and violence. JUV032030,JUV039120,JUV039180 Matt and Free discover the dark side of the City of Light. Neither Matt nor Free ever imagined they would be playing American football in Paris, especially with a team from the poverty-stricken suburb called Villeneuve. Nothing in Matts privileged Montreal background has prepared him for the racial tension he encounters. And Free just wants to play football and forget whats going on back home in Texas.