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.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2012 by Anne Ylvisaker
Cover photograph copyright © 2012 by Lew Long/Corbis
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
First electronic edition 2012
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Ylvisaker, Anne.
Button down / Anne Ylvisaker.
p. cm.
Summary: Ever since local boy Lester Ward got drafted by the University of Iowa Hawkeyes, Tugs Button’s scrawny cousin Ned can think of nothing but football. 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 things going for him: he can catch and sometimes even throw, much to his surprise. And he’s got his eccentric Grandpa Ike, who may have 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 being a team and honing your strategy, and that having friends and family in your corner is a bigger prize than a lucky football ever will be.
ISBN 978-0-7636-5396-5 (hardcover)
[1. Football — Fiction. 2. Grandfathers — Fiction. 3. Friendship — Fiction. 4. Luck — Fiction. 5. Family life — Iowa — Fiction. 6. Depressions — 1929 — Fiction. 7. Iowa — History — 20th century — Fiction. 8. Mystery and detective stories.] I. Title.
PZ7.Y57But 2012
[Fic] — dc23 2011048114
ISBN 978-0-7636-6207-3 (electronic)
Candlewick Press
99 Dover Street
Somerville, Massachusetts 02144
visit us at www.candlewick.com
Button Down Page 8