Definitely a book that I will recommend to my middle school students. I loved the format of the book, and the relationships that formed between characters. While the book had basketball weaved in, it wasn't overwhelming or all about the sport. Quick read that I thoroughly enjoyed.

I thought this book was very relatable, by that I mean how things change as you grow up. It made me to want to keep reading and never to put it down. Overall a great book,

This winsome novel in verse should appeal to reluctant-reading boys in a big way. Kwame Alexander mixes up the stanzas and styles, giving us the Bell family -- patriarch and ex-hoops great Chuck "Da Man" Bell, his wife Crystal (also a middle school principal), and his twin sons, Jordan "JB" and Josh "Filthy McNasty." Yeah, they love basketball and most of the poems swish through that net, but there are also pages dedicated to family, to their senses of humor, to JB's first love (with a girl Josh...

Cleverly captivating, presented in poetic form, I cannot believe how much this catchy story covers. I knew it'd be great because I've seen it on students' desks and more recently on a few Goodreads' Want to Read shelves and students never steer me wrong when it comes to book recommendations.

Review originally posted on YA LoveNewbery contenders aren’t often on my radar since I teach high school students, so the fact that I read two out of the three books blew my mind. I was sitting in my pajamas watching the live stream since we had a snow day and I threw up my arms and cheered when The Crossover was announced as the winner.Kwame Alexander’s newest release has been on my radar for quite some time for many reasons despite its younger audience. I adore novels written in verse and have...

Here's an experiment I'd like a teacher to try for me. Don't "teach" this Newbery Award winner. Instead, place a copy of Crossover on each student's desk before they enter the classroom. Maybe upside down and backward to make it a bit more tempting. And then wait to see what happens. If the students say, "Do we have to read this?" answer, "I was curious whether anyone would want to." If they say, "What are we going to do with this book?" answer, "I thought I'd ask you that question." If they ask...

Dear Mr. Kwame Alexander, You've got some explaining to do, Mister. You are officially responsible for the first big Ugly Cry of 2014, and I am not really happy about it. Thanks for the foreshadowing that did NOTHING to prepare me for this book. You hear me? NO. THING. NOTHING. You better hope we never cross paths, because I will have a few words for you. That is all.

WOW oh WOW. When a book hits a sweet spot, it zooms from one student to another. As soon as I read the opening lines of The Crossover, with its basketball cover and bouncing rap beat, I just knew I had to read it aloud to my 5th graders. But nothing prepared me for how it hooked them. To say they are loving it is an understatement. Fifth grade boys are just about wrestling each other to see who's going to get it next--jostling each other over a novel in verse!For Josh Bell, basketball and his fa...

The Crossover, Newbery Medalist 2015, confirms the growing trend of novels in verse form, telling basic coming-of-age stories in short, free verse. This one follows exactly the same pattern as for example "The Weight of Water" or "Cloud Busting", slightly different from "Love That Dog" and "Hate That Cat", or "To Be Perfectly Honest", yet another one of those seemingly endless novels which claim to be deep because the language is broken into stanzas, sometimes rhyming, but most of the time just

I picked this up at the library sale and used it for a Popsugar prompt for a book about sports. This book was well outside my genre both in scope, and in audience. Sports is not something I'm generally interested in reading about. Kwame Alexander is brilliant to use something as basketball to tie together poetry, free verse, and messages in a way that is accessible to all ages. This book is much more than just basketball. My heart found a special place for the Bell family including dad, who is a...

First Newbery I've read in a while. Helped that it was about basketball (my dad's favorite sport).

This one earned a whole extra star from me because it drew in one of my remedial readers...and he loved it...a book written in verse. And he came and asked for more books just like it- Me: "You mean basketball books?"Student: "No, ones with those poems in it."Be still my heart. This child never likes to read anything.That's worth five stars. That's worth a Newbery.

I love the rhythm and language of this novel in verse about twins who love basketball and their larger-than-life father, but don't always connect off the court.

I am late in reviewing this, but oh my goodness, what an amazing book. Kwame Alexander gives us a novel in verse -- a series of poems about twin brothers, JD and Jordan Bell, sons of a former pro basketball player, who are making their way through middle school as best they can -- navigating first crushes, homework, family tensions, and of course, basketball. I was in awe of Alexander's ability to tell such a rich, multifaceted story with so few words. Poetry is hard, at least for me, yet Alexan...

Originally posted here at Random Musings of a Bibliophile.I have said before I don't love verse novels. Do you know what I love even less? Basketball. Not a fan. Not even a little bit. With those two things working against it, I really didn't want to read The Crossover by Kwame Alexander. But it's getting a lot of award buzz so I finally (rather petulantly) picked up a copy. Ahem. This book is AMAZING. I loved it. This is why we should always stretch ourselves to read even those things that we d...

BeautifulVerseFamilyQuick ReadHeartfeltThis is really reading outside my normal subject matter. I rarely read anything with sports. This is a Newbery book and a Kwame book so I gave it a try. For such a compact story, it packs a punch. I have no understanding of a crossover and what it is, but it seems to be a special move in basketball. I loved the prose, I love the family dynamics. I loved the family players. Wow, it really is a well done story about a family and their love of basketball. I lo...

I listened to this one on audiobook, which was a great way to experience this book since it is written in verse.

3.5/5This book was good. Like REALLY good. The characters are real and relatable to the reader, and you form connections with them thoughout the story. I won't spoil anything, but there is a FLOOD of emotion near the end. My only complaint is that the writing is strange and the story skips around a bit, but once you get used to the writing style and the hops in the story, you can fully enjoy this book. I would recommend this to anyone who likes poetry and to anyone who likes stories where you fo...

Kwame Alexander's The Crossover won both the Newberry and Coretta Scott King Awards for children's literature in 2014. Combining beautiful prose with poetry that jumps off the page, Alexander tells the story of twin thirteen year basketball players Jordan and Josh Bell in a manner that makes reading fun for middle grade kids. Using basketball as a metaphor for life, Alexander imparts life lessons to adolescents in a non threatening way that has teachers reaching for his books. Josh and Jordan "J...

Newbury Medal 2015. Twin brothers Josh and JB are the stars on their middle school basketball team. Playing ball every night with their father, a former European league player, has bonded the three of them together. But the two boys are now 13 and things are changing, causing strains on the closeness they have always had with each other. Alexander has Josh tell the story with verse—and he does it brilliantly—particularly with his 10 Rules of Basketball:Rule No. 1:“In this game of lifeyour family...