No Name (Book 1) by Tim Tingle

"I am living under a door in my backyard."

Bobby Byington, a modern Choctaw teenager, is struggling to survive. With the help of a Cherokee friend and basketball buddy, Bobby creates an underground hideaway, so he can still live at home but avoid his bullying father. During fleeting moments of safety, he arises from his living grave for the sport he loves—basketball. When Bobby has a chance to play on the high school basketball team, he must make a choice—continue his secret life or join the trials and triumphs of a teenager's road to adulthood.

About the author: As a Choctaw folklorist, writer and storyteller, Tim Tingle has appeared at the Kennedy Center, the Library of Congress, and across the United States and abroad. In August of 2009, he performed the traditional story, "No Name," before ninety thousand Choctaws and friends at the annual Labor Day Gathering. This modern adaptation was inspired by Tingle's belief that "great stories describe the human experience and never lose their importance." No Name follows the path of a young man breaking down ethnic walls and carving a life for himself in modern America, a common story among today's American Indians.