I Told Myself I Wouldn't Buy a Book

Our senior prom was in the opposite location of my home, so I decided to kill time at Barnes & Noble. Before going in, I vowed that I wouldn't purchase a book because I had a box full of books from the recent Scholastic sale in my trunk. I held out for an hour, and then I gave in.

I walked the shelves. I had my phone in hand, and I was adding many titles to my to-read list on my GoodReads account. (Students, if you don't have one and your parents will allow you, sign up for one!)

And then I stumbled upon Kwame Alexander's The Crossover. The cover looked interesting enough, and I've been on the lookout for a while for a book that would interest my students that read Boy21, Foul Trouble, and other books that are about basketball. With my phone still out, I looked up the reviews on GoodReads, and I knew I had to get this book.

I ended up sitting in the parking lot for an hour before prom just reading this book. It is a verse novel, which I like because it allows me to help bridge genres for students. If they can read about something they like, they are more likely to attempt a new genre--even if it's poetry.

The book is about two twin brothers, Josh and JB, who are the sons of a former European league basketball star. It tells the story of their middle school basketball season, and it is broken into four quarters. It also explores the story of their relationship to each other, their father, and explains how they navigate the world. Basketball acts as a sort of center, a sphere, that helps "ground" Josh while he makes sense of the many changes taking place in his life.