In the book behind the Academy Award–winning film, we first meet Michael Oher as one of thirteen children by a mother addicted to crack. He does not know his real name, his birthday, or how to read or write.

He takes up football, and school, after a rich, white, evangelical family plucks him from the streets. Then two great forces change him: the family’s love and the evolution of professional football itself into a game in which the quarterback must be protected at any cost. Oher becomes the priceless package of size, speed, and agility necessary to guard the quarterback’s greatest vulnerability: his blind side.