2015 Newbery Medal Winner
A 2015 Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book
A 2015 Top Ten Best Fiction for Young Adults Book
Josh and his twin brother, Jordan (better known as JB), are teen basketball phenoms. Basketball is as vital and natural to them as breathing, which isn't surprising given that their father played professionally overseas before deciding to retire at a young age. This year, their team has a real chance at winning the county championship, especially since Josh and JB are playing the best they've ever played. But growing up (and in the case of identical twins, starting to grow apart) takes its toll on the young boys. Josh feels left out when JB starts dating a new girl at their school, pushing down his anger until it explodes on the court. He also can't ignore the increasingly louder arguments between his parents over his father's health. Josh pours it all into poetry, telling the story in verse, while playing it out on the court. In fact, Kwame Alexander's decision to write The Crossover in verse format is a great one, infusing the scenes where Josh and JB are playing in games with a hip-hop swagger, playing with font sizes, styles, and spacing to create an image of the action. It adds to the vulnerability that Josh is feeling about JB and his father's not-totally-obvious decline in health. My only complaint is that it feels like a lot gets packed into a short amount of time and then ends before the reader has time to process all that happened (though after reveling in the 500-plus pages of All the Light We Cannot See, this feels like an unfair observation to make, so it's probably just me and not the book). This is a great book, perfect for middle-grade readers, and definitely worthy of its accolades.
(Read as part of YALSA's Hub Reading Challenge.)
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