Review by New York Times Review
JOSH AND JB ARE TWINS, double trouble on the basketball court, almost 13 years old. When we first encounter them in Kwame Alexander's beautifully measured novel of life and lines, "The Crossover," they are deep into a year when everything changes. The story is written in verse, but have no fear: Here, poetry is in service to the interior and exterior worlds of Josh, who plays forward to JB's shooting guard. Besides being an inch taller and the one with dreadlocks to his neck, Josh is also the brother with the larger vocabulary - by the novel's end, he will define 12 important words and terms. Josh and JB's world is one in which both parents are professionals. Their father is a former European league basketball player, and their mother is an assistant principal at the boys' junior high school. The fact that the twins are both college-bound is an understated given. That this is a portrait of a successful, close-knit African-American family in the Obama era also seems to be a part of that understatement. "The Crossover" doesn't ignore contemporary issues involving race. There is a traffic stop on the way to a game, in which the boys' father (like many an African-American man) is pulled over for a minor infraction; Josh is warned by his mother about what happens to young black men who let their tempers get the better of them; his parents fight not over money or fidelity but over diet and hereditary hypertension. Alexander doesn't seem to be pushing a social agenda so much as throwing light upon what must be, in the world of children's literature, a very undertold story. The novel focuses on how the twins come into their own and how their bond weathers all the changes and challenges the year bears upon it. Basketball is the novel's red-hot engine. It is the glue connecting the sons and source of the wisdom their father passes down. Alexander takes great delight in borrowing the energy of rap and hip-hop to translate the game's heat, speed and joy of motion to the page: ... A bolt of lightning on my kicks... The court is sizzling My sweat is drizzling Stop all that quivering Cuz tonight I'm delivering. Alexander uses free verse to equally good effect to convey the quality of Josh's observations: My twin brother is a bailer. The only thing he loves more than basketball is betting. If it's ninety degrees outside and the sky is cloudless, he will bet you that it's going to rain. A third narrative mode is the "play by play" announcer's voice Josh speaks in his head when he's on the court during games: first play of the game. The hopes are high tonight at Reggie Lewis Junior High. The dozen aforementioned vocabulary words and the 10 Rules of Basketball are also expressed in verse: Rule No. 1: "In this game of life/your family is the court/and the ball is your heart." And finally, Alexander incorporates the near-haiku feel of fractured text messages, mainly from the boys' mother: "7:48/if you lose. LOL." Josh will need all his gifts - of family love, friendship, education, athleticism and poetry - because Alexander has written a year of hard surprises for both brothers, but especially for Josh, whose life lessons pile on quickly. The biggest surprise of "The Crossover" is that, for all the bells and whistles of a young man's game, it is most boldly and certainly a book about tenderness. It's the trigger that causes a rift between the brothers, and what will ultimately heal them. More important, readers should observe the careful way Alexander builds the small moments between the brothers; between the brothers and their father; between father and mother; the way teasing breaks sometimes to anger, then back to teasing again, the way they refuse to let go of each other, regardless. "True champions / learn / to dance / through / the storm," Josh notes in Basketball Rule No. 10. By then a reader will be dazzled by the bright ways Kwame Alexander has been singing the changes. The Wildcats have it, CORNELIUS EADY holds the Miller chair in poetry at the University of Missouri, Columbia.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [May 11, 2014]
Review by Booklist Review
The Bell twins are stars on the basketball court and comrades in life. While there are some differences Josh shaves his head and Jordan loves his locks both twins adhere to the Bell basketball rules: In this game of life, your family is the court, and the ball is your heart. With a former professional basketball player dad and an assistant principal mom, there is an intensely strong home front supporting sports and education in equal measures. When life intervenes in the form of a hot new girl, the balance shifts and growing apart proves painful. An accomplished author and poet, Alexander eloquently mashes up concrete poetry, hip-hop, a love of jazz, and a thriving family bond. The effect is poetry in motion. It is a rare verse novel that is fundamentally poetic rather than using this writing trend as a device. There is also a quirky vocabulary element that adds a fun intellectual note to the narrative. This may be just the right book for those hard-to-match youth who live for sports or music or both.--Bush, Gail Copyright 2014 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Josh Bell, known on and off the court by the nickname Filthy McNasty, doesn't lack self-confidence, but neither does he lack the skills to back up his own mental in-game commentary: "I rise like a Learjet-/ seventh-graders aren't supposed to dunk./ But guess what?/ I snatch the ball out of the air and/ SLAM!/ YAM! IN YOUR MUG!" Josh is sure that he and his twin brother, JB, are going pro, following in the footsteps of their father, who played professional ball in Europe. But Alexander (He Said, She Said) drops hints that Josh's trajectory may be headed back toward Earth: his relationship with JB is strained by a new girl at school, and the boys' father health is in increasingly shaky territory. The poems dodge and weave with the speed of a point guard driving for the basket, mixing basketball action with vocabulary-themed poems, newspaper clippings, and Josh's sincere first-person accounts that swing from moments of swagger-worthy triumph to profound pain. This verse novel delivers a real emotional punch before the final buzzer. Ages 9-12. Agent: East West Literary Agency. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 6-10-Twins Josh and Jordan are junior high basketball stars, thanks in large part to the coaching of their dad, a former professional baller who was forced to quit playing for health reasons, and the firm, but loving support of their assistant-principal mom. Josh, better known as Filthy McNasty, earned his nickname for his enviable skills on the court: ".when Filthy gets hot/He has a SLAMMERIFIC SHOT." In this novel in verse, the brothers begin moving apart from each other for the first time. Jordan starts dating the "pulchritudinous" Miss Sweet Tea, and Josh has a tough time keeping his jealousy and feelings of abandonment in control. Alexander's poems vary from the pulsing, aggressive beats of a basketball game ("My shot is F L O W I N G, Flying, fluttering.. ringaling and SWINGALING/Swish. Game/over") to the more introspective musings of a child struggling into adolescence ("Sit beside JB at dinner. He moves./Tell him a joke. He doesn't even smile..Say I'm sorry/but he won't listen"). Despite his immaturity, Josh is a likable, funny, and authentic character. Underscoring the sports and the fraternal tension is a portrait of a family that truly loves and supports one another. Alexander has crafted a story that vibrates with energy and heart and begs to be read aloud. A slam dunk.-Kiera Parrott, School Library Journal. (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
Josh and Jordan (JB), identical twin sons of former basketball phenom Chuck "Da Man" Bell, are ball legends themselves, and they aren't yet thirteen; Josh is the only middle schooler around who can dunk, JB has a mean three-point shot, and together they're a well-oiled machine on the court. But then things start to change, as they tend to do at their age: JB gets a girlfriend, and before Josh knows it, their relationship is strained to the point of a mid-game altercation that lands him benched for weeks. On top of that, their mother frets constantly over Dad's poor health, and the boys begin to worry, too. Josh's first-person verse narration is a combination of exciting play-by-play game details, insightful middle-school observations, and poignant meditations on sibling dynamics and familial love. Since poet Alexander has the swagger and cool confidence of a star player and the finesse of a perfectly in-control ball-handler, wordplay and alliteration roll out like hip-hop lyrics, and the use of concrete forms and playful font changes keep things dynamic: "SWOOP in / to the finish with a fierce finger roll / Straight in the hole: / Swoooooooooooosh." Alexander brings the novel-in-verse format to a fresh audience with this massively appealing package for reluctant readers, athletes especially. katrina hedeen (c) Copyright 2014. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Basketball-playing twins find challenges to their relationship on and off the court as they cope with changes in their lives. Josh Bell and his twin, Jordan, aka JB, are stars of their school basketball team. They are also successful students, since their educator mother will stand for nothing else. As the two middle schoolers move to a successful season, readers can see their differences despite the sibling connection. After all, Josh has dreadlocks and is quiet on court, and JB is bald and a trash talker. Their love of the sport comes from their father, who had also excelled in the game, though his championship was achieved overseas. Now, however, he does not have a job and seems to have health problems the parents do not fully divulge to the boys. The twins experience their first major rift when JB is attracted to a new girl in their school, and Josh finds himself without his brother. This novel in verse is rich in character and relationships. Most interesting is the family dynamic that informs so much of the narrative, which always reveals, never tells. While Josh relates the story, readers get a full picture of major and minor players. The basketball action provides energy and rhythm for a moving story. Poet Alexander deftly reveals the power of the format to pack an emotional punch. (Verse fiction. 9-12)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
