The Crossover by Kwame Alexander
Alexander, K. (2014). The crossover. New York, NY: Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt.
Twelve-year-old Josh Bell, aka Filthy
McNasty, is a basketball phenom. He aims
to be the next Kevin Durant or LeBron James.
His twin brother Jordan is just as good and idolizes another great,
Michael Jordan. The boys inherited their
love of the game from the father, a former professional basketball player,
Chuck “Da Man” Bell. Everything is going
great, the team is on their way to the championship and it seems that these
boys just cannot be stopped. Then a new
girl in school catches Jordan’s attention and leaves Josh feeling more alone than ever. As if that wasn’t enough, mom seems very
concerned about their father’s health and the boys are starting to wonder if
maybe they should be worried. This story
of family relationships, sibling dynamics and middle school drama is
brilliantly told in a poetic form that middle schoolers will not want to put
down.
Evaluation Criteria: Theme and Style
In addition to family relationships the overriding theme of
this story is basketball. It’s what the
men in this family live for. If they’re
not out on the court destroying other middle school teams, they’re shooting
free throws in the driveway or hanging out at the rec center organizing games. Alexander even uses the structure of basketball
to divide the story into “quarters” rather than chapters and delivers life
lessons in the form of “basketball rules.”
Novel-in-verse is the style of this book and Alexander does an amazing
job of weaving in all the excitement of game play-by-plays to Josh’s inner struggles
with his life and family in a form that is pure poetry in motion.
Time for Kids Interview with Kwame Alexander
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