The Kicks Books in Order
Part ofAlex Morgan Books in OrderSee The Kicks books in order by Alex Morgan, with quick summaries, series background, reading order, and a clear guide to where to start reading.
Last updated: July 6, 2026
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Publication Order
12 books
Sabotage Season
by Alex Morgan
2013
As strange accidents pile up around the Kicks, Devin becomes sure a rival team is behind the trouble. To keep Kentville's championship hopes alive, she and her friends have to solve the mystery before the season falls apart.
Saving the Team
by Alex Morgan
2013
Twelve-year-old Devin moves from Connecticut to California expecting fierce soccer competition, only to find her new school team in chaos. With new friends Jessi, Zoe, and Emma, she sets out to turn the Kicks into a real team.
Win or Lose
by Alex Morgan
2014
The Kicks have reached the playoffs, but the biggest challenge may be staying united. A bad quote makes Devin look selfish, Zoe is distracted, and the coach has to leave town just when the team needs calm most.
Hat Trick
by Alex Morgan
2015
With the school season over, the girls try out for a tougher travel team and find their friendships pulled in new directions. At the same time, Devin and the others race to save Maisie's elementary school soccer program.
Shaken Up
by Alex Morgan
2015
After an earthquake rattles California, Devin is more unsettled than she wants to admit. Her confidence slips at school and on the field, and she has to figure out how to regain her balance before everything starts feeling shaky.
Settle the Score
by Alex Morgan
2016
Winter league playoffs put Devin and Jessi on one side and Zoe on the other, turning friendly competition into real tension. As the finals get closer, the Kicks discover how hard it is to cheer for your friends and still want to beat them.
Under Pressure
by Alex Morgan
2017
The Kicks are back for spring soccer, only now everyone expects them to win. Devin and her teammates have to handle the new pressure, quiet their nerves, and remember how to play together before the season slips away.
Choosing Sides
by Alex Morgan
2018
Devin tries to help a struggling rival team after a summer league friend asks for advice. But when the Roses start improving, the Kicks think Devin is helping the competition, just as Zoe and Emma's friendship starts to crack.
In the Zone
by Alex Morgan
2018
The Kicks are chasing a strong spring season, but Emma's confidence crashes after a mistake in goal. As nerves spread through the team, Devin has to help her friends steady themselves before doubt costs them on the field.
Switching Goals
by Alex Morgan
2019
When Frida talks Devin into tagging along to a commercial audition, Devin ends up getting noticed for a modeling job of her own. What starts as a fun surprise soon collides with soccer, friends, and big questions about her future.
Homecoming
by Alex Morgan
2020
Devin heads back to Connecticut to see her best friend Kara just as the Kicks reach the playoffs. Lost luggage, old tensions, and rumors of another move leave her shaken and struggling to get her head back in the game.
Fans in the Stands
by Alex Morgan
2021
With the Kicks and the boys' Kangaroos both close to regional titles, Devin is ready for a huge finish to the season. Then a bragging contest turns into a bet over who can draw the bigger crowd, and both championship runs are suddenly at risk.
Series background & context
The Kicks starts with a simple, strong middle-grade setup. Devin Burke moves from Connecticut to Kentville, California, expecting to fight for a place on a powerhouse soccer team. Instead she finds the Kentville Kangaroos, quickly nicknamed the Kicks, talented enough to improve but badly organized. That becomes the engine of the series. Devin wants to win, but she also has to learn how to join a new school, read a new group of teammates, and lead without turning into the kid who thinks she knows everything.
Soon the real center of the books becomes Devin's friendship circle: outgoing Jessi, sweet and speedy Zoe, cheerful goalie Emma, and later teammates like Frida and Grace. Each girl brings a different strength and a different kind of pressure. One worries about confidence. Another gets pulled between teams. Another turns everything into drama, which is funny until it suddenly is not. The books keep those personalities in motion, so the team feels like an actual group rather than a list of positions.
These are soccer books, but they are really team books.
Kentville matters too. Because the series is set in California, soccer never really drops out of the calendar. The story moves from school soccer to playoffs, travel teams, winter league, spring season, clinics, and big weekend games. That year-round rhythm lets Alex Morgan show how sports spills into the rest of middle-school life: lunch tables, homework, family stress, crushes, auditions, and the question of who you are when you are not the best player on the field.
Across books like Saving the Team, Sabotage Season, Hat Trick, and Under Pressure, the ongoing tension is usually not about saving the world. It is about whether the girls can trust each other enough to play well together. Rival teams stir up trouble. Coaches and parents help, or sometimes get in the way. Confidence rises and falls. Devin often ends up in the middle, trying to compete hard without forgetting what friendship asks of her.
That smaller scale is part of the charm.
The tone stays upbeat and quick, with enough game action to satisfy sports readers, but the books do not pretend that every problem disappears after a pep talk. Some stories focus on nerves or jealousy. Others look at loyalty, moving away, or the pressure that shows up once a team starts winning. If you read the books in order, the payoff is watching the Kicks grow from a scattered school team into a real unit with history behind it. The series later inspired a live-action adaptation, which fits, because the appeal is easy to picture: practices, mistakes, comebacks, inside jokes, and girls learning how to back each other up.
Edited by
Software engineer whose passion for tracking book recommendations from podcasts inspired the creation of MRB.
Lead investor at 3one4 Capital whose startup expertise and love for books helped shaped MRB and its growth.




























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