FirstSecond Books will release Gene Luen Yang’s next original graphic novel Dragon Hoops, the author’s first non-fiction release, in 2018.

Described as “a true-life illustrated account of the 2015 Bishop O’Dowd High School boys’ basketball team and its run at the California state championship,” by the Washington Post, the story will share Yang’s account of the events that happened when he was teaching computer science at the Bay Area Catholic school. The story will deal with race, the tension between high school academics and athletics, sports culture, and the journey toward victory.  The focus of the story will be on the six senior players on the squad, including one player who was the only Sikh player in the basketball league.

Yang was recently named the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature (see “Gene Luen Yang Is National Ambassador for Young People's Literature”). He has twice been nominated for the National Book Award, in 2013 for Boxers & Saints (see “Gene Luen Yang's 'Boxers & Saints' Makes National Book Awards List”), and in 2006 for American Born Chinese (see “'American Born Chinese'”). His other graphic novels include the Secret Coders series (see “Hatke, Sturm, Knisley, Yang”), Avatar: The Last Airbender (see “ICv2 Interview: Gene Luen Yang on 'Avatar'”),