Seventeen hours after the buzzer sounded on an ugly 6-1 loss in Long Island, Zach Hyman is at the Toronto Reference Library ahead of a busy afternoon of book reading.



He’s there, inside the second floor’s Novella Room, as part of Head & Shoulders’ Headstrong campaign to read a group of local children his book, Hockey Hero, and make a small donation to the library’s children’s literacy initiatives.



The second of Hyman’s three children’s novels to date, Hockey Hero (published in 2015) tells the story of 8-year-old Tommy Toomay, who, under the guidance of his hockey-mad grandfather, overcomes his season-long nerves in the championship game. It follows 2014’s The Bambino and Me, a story on a young Yankees fan’s first game, and precedes 2018’s The Magician’s Secret, which tells the story of a grandfather, a grandson and the power of their shared imagination.



Hyman’s...