Swoosh!

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander
Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, [2014]
237 p. ; 22 cm.

One advantage of being home sick is getting around to reading books that were on my backlist.  The Crossover is one of those, and it helped that I mentioned it a few weeks ago to a student, who told me he liked it.    

The Crossover is a "novels in verse" which I'm not as taken with as some readers are, but Kwame Alexander's novel received such glowing praise and awards - including  the prestigious Newbery Award and honors from the Coretta Scott King Awards - that I felt I had to read it.

I have no complaints about the book.  Alexander dazzles with his lively poems and energetic vocabulary and style.  The narrative of the book - involving twin brothers who are very young basketball phenoms - is exciting, fascinating, filled with sports and family drama, and is unpredictable.  What more could you want?

Really my only gripe is that the book is pretty young for a high school audience.  It feels VERY middle school - including the one twin brother's utter incomprehension that his other brother is more interested in romantic love than in hanging out with him! I guess I'll still recommend the book, but just mention that the main characters are middle schoolers, not high schoolers.