Everyone knows the importance of exercise, especially in today’s society, but how far is too far to push students? In the novel “Losers Take All”, written by David Klass and released Oct. 20, 2015, students at Fremont High School experience just what happens when administration pushes too far.

Fremont High School has always had an excellent sports tradition, but when ex-football player Brian Mulhdinger takes over as principal, he pushes the sports agenda and forces all seniors to join a team. Before school starts for the year, Mulhdinger sets his sights on senior Jack Logan, and offers him a chance to try out for the varsity football team. After a damaging injury, Jack chooses not to join Muhldinger’s team. The novel follows the series of events that follow after Jack refuses to join the team.

A group of non-athletic kids find a loophole to the rule and start their own C-team soccer team, recruiting a part-time Latin teacher as their faculty coach. Jack, the son of the best football player ever to graduate from Fremont, is the founder of the team. This band of self-proclaimed losers squares up against a few teams that agree to play them, and they try to lose in the most humorous ways possible.

David Klass, a well renowned novelist of teen crises, has outdone himself with this novel. New to the Conway Springs High School Library, the novel seems fitting in a school that glorifies football. Fremont High understands too late the impact this glorification has on students who are not involved in athletics. Not only does this novel tackle this tremendous issue, but the storylines of individual characters show forgiveness, determination, and extraordinary friendships. The message, found in the last chapter, and topping the others, is the discovery of self-worth. Members of the “Losers” believed their self-proclaimed title until Jack proves to them they can do whatever they set their minds too.

Whether an athlete or not, readers of all ages can find connection to this novel and the teen angst that Klass so expertly portrays. The importance of the message, while told with humor, is not lost to readers as they delve into the novel. I give this novel five cardinal heads out of five for the significant messages and the expert combination of humor and drama.