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A review by jecoats
The Crossover by Kwame Alexander
5.0
The Crossover is a book written in verse, recommended to me by a colleague at Mather High School. I read a physical copy of the book, which has won the Newbery Medal (2015), Massachusetts Children's Book Award (2020), Evergreen Teen Book Award (2017), Coretta Scott King Book Award for Author Honor (2015), Charlie May Simon Children's Book Award (2017), North Carolina Young Adult Book Award for Middle School (2016), NCTE Charlotte Huck Honor Book (2015), and the Rebecca Caudill Young Readers' Book Award (2017).
The Crossover is about middle school basketball star Josh “Filthy McNasty” Bell leading his team to a championship, dealing with his twin brother’s new girlfriend, and managing his parents' expectations of him. Josh’s father, a former professional basketball star, has health problems, which Josh also has to contend with. The novel opens with some visually and rhythmically dynamic poetry, which is employed to depict how good Josh really is at basketball. We see Josh and his brother, JB, work on the court to win their team several victories. Mixed in between all this, JB develops a relationship with a new girl at school. As the novel progresses, Josh becomes bitter and jealous over JB’s new relationship, which ends up with him nearly breaking his brother’s nose. Josh is removed from the team, and he tries desperately to repair the damage he caused to his relationship with his brother. Soon after, Josh and his dad are playing a one-on-one game at a nearby rec center, when Josh’s dad collapses after suffering a heart attack. The rest of the novel is an emotional rollercoaster of triumph and tragedy as Josh returns to the court to try and help the team win the championship game. I won’t spoil anymore as this novel is best experienced, and to say anymore would be doing the story a disservice.
Along with Rez Dogs, this may be the first novel in verse I have ever read. I have certainly read epics like Paradise Lost, and long form narrative poetry like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, but The Crossover (and Rez Dogs) is nothing like those poems. Even told in verse, the story presented is direct and straightforward. Author Kwame Alexander does a masterful job weaving different poetic variations and styles into the book, sometimes using meter and rhyme and sometimes using free verse. Each style conveys meaning in and of itself, amplifying the emotions felt on each page. However, readers unfamiliar with these aspects of poetry will still get much out of the book. The language flows naturally, and each character has their own distinct speech patterns and unique vocabulary. The novel is superb in this way - each voice on the page is immediately recognizable to the reader. There was never a moment I was unsure about who was speaking.
The story itself is beautiful, and may be one of the most emotionally powerful things I have read in quite some time. It’s cliche to say this, I know, but the novel truly does grip you from the first lines and does not let go until the very end (and arguably beyond, as I’m sure the raw power of the novel will stick with readers well after they finish the story).
This novel would be incredibly effective at getting reticent or struggling readers into poetry. The Crossover proves that not all poetry has to be dense, or a “mystery” to unpack, and instead can mimic our speech and draw us in through the pure beauty of the words on the page. (It reminds me of a freshman student of mine who once commented that poetry was “just words, but they mean so much more.”) I think this book could be used from 5th to 12th grade. Although the book might seem daunting at 237 pages, it is a fast read, and the poems could easily be read in class by students. This book is certainly a mirror, providing a cast of all black characters (there are a few characters whose racial backgrounds are never given - but they are minor characters who don’t have any major impact on the story) that our BIPOC students might identify with. Culturally, there is nothing too particularly specific about Josh and his family - with some minor changes they could easily be from any culture, race, or ethnic background. However, Alexander’s narrative feels real and authentic, so much so that I had to double check to make sure it wasn’t based on a true story.
The Crossover is about middle school basketball star Josh “Filthy McNasty” Bell leading his team to a championship, dealing with his twin brother’s new girlfriend, and managing his parents' expectations of him. Josh’s father, a former professional basketball star, has health problems, which Josh also has to contend with. The novel opens with some visually and rhythmically dynamic poetry, which is employed to depict how good Josh really is at basketball. We see Josh and his brother, JB, work on the court to win their team several victories. Mixed in between all this, JB develops a relationship with a new girl at school. As the novel progresses, Josh becomes bitter and jealous over JB’s new relationship, which ends up with him nearly breaking his brother’s nose. Josh is removed from the team, and he tries desperately to repair the damage he caused to his relationship with his brother. Soon after, Josh and his dad are playing a one-on-one game at a nearby rec center, when Josh’s dad collapses after suffering a heart attack. The rest of the novel is an emotional rollercoaster of triumph and tragedy as Josh returns to the court to try and help the team win the championship game. I won’t spoil anymore as this novel is best experienced, and to say anymore would be doing the story a disservice.
Along with Rez Dogs, this may be the first novel in verse I have ever read. I have certainly read epics like Paradise Lost, and long form narrative poetry like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, but The Crossover (and Rez Dogs) is nothing like those poems. Even told in verse, the story presented is direct and straightforward. Author Kwame Alexander does a masterful job weaving different poetic variations and styles into the book, sometimes using meter and rhyme and sometimes using free verse. Each style conveys meaning in and of itself, amplifying the emotions felt on each page. However, readers unfamiliar with these aspects of poetry will still get much out of the book. The language flows naturally, and each character has their own distinct speech patterns and unique vocabulary. The novel is superb in this way - each voice on the page is immediately recognizable to the reader. There was never a moment I was unsure about who was speaking.
The story itself is beautiful, and may be one of the most emotionally powerful things I have read in quite some time. It’s cliche to say this, I know, but the novel truly does grip you from the first lines and does not let go until the very end (and arguably beyond, as I’m sure the raw power of the novel will stick with readers well after they finish the story).
This novel would be incredibly effective at getting reticent or struggling readers into poetry. The Crossover proves that not all poetry has to be dense, or a “mystery” to unpack, and instead can mimic our speech and draw us in through the pure beauty of the words on the page. (It reminds me of a freshman student of mine who once commented that poetry was “just words, but they mean so much more.”) I think this book could be used from 5th to 12th grade. Although the book might seem daunting at 237 pages, it is a fast read, and the poems could easily be read in class by students. This book is certainly a mirror, providing a cast of all black characters (there are a few characters whose racial backgrounds are never given - but they are minor characters who don’t have any major impact on the story) that our BIPOC students might identify with. Culturally, there is nothing too particularly specific about Josh and his family - with some minor changes they could easily be from any culture, race, or ethnic background. However, Alexander’s narrative feels real and authentic, so much so that I had to double check to make sure it wasn’t based on a true story.