#thecrossover

AFTER THE SHOT DROPS by Randy Ribay is a book about friendship, about toxic masculinity, about systemic racism, poverty, and privilege...but it’s also about basketball. Basketball is the sport that made Bunny and Nasir a team, and it’s the sport they both turn to when times get tough.

That’s how we feel about the YA community: like all of the characters and authors and readers are part of a big team, and we can turn to one another when we need to. So we asked Randy Ribay, the author of AFTER THE SHOT DROPS, to name his dream YA basketball team. Here’s what he had to say!

There's a lot of great basketball talent out there in YA literature, but if I had to choose, here's my starting five:

Point guard: Tough competition for this position, but I'd go with Starr Carter from Angie Thomas's The Hate U Give. She shows some serious leadership that I'd expect to translate onto the court. 

Shooting guard: Finley from Matthew Quick's Boy21. He's got the work ethic and skills, but more importantly for this position, the ability to support. 

Small forward: Josh Bell from The Crossover by Kwame Alexander. "Filthy McNasty" definitely demonstrates potential, and I'd expect him to slide into that power forward spot soon as he finishes his growth spurt. 

Power forward: Bunny from my own book, After the Shot Drops. He's versatile and athletic enough to scramble the opponent's defense with his ability to dominate down low and up high. 

Center: For whatever reason, there aren't many centers who get a whole lot of page space in YA basketball books (that I can remember), so I'd cheat and bring in YA author Jay Kristoff (Illuminae). I'm not sure if he even plays basketball, but dude's tall enough to snag some rebounds. 

I think this squad would be unstoppable. Nasir and the other YA characters who didn't make the cut might be a little sad, of course, but I believe they'd ultimately learn to be great cheerleaders.  As many of them learn in their own novels, life's not all about them.

***

Who would be on your dream YA basketball team? Let us know in the comments below, and don’t forget to order AFTER THE SHOT DROPS, available on 3/6 from any of the links below:

           Kwame Alexander’s coming-of-age and realistic fiction novel, The Crossover (2014), follows our main character Josh Bell, his twin brother JB and his parents through basketball, school, relationships, and family life. As Josh tells us his story, he includes ten rules of basketball, and those rules happen to double as rules in his game of life. The first and seemingly most relevant rule for the Bell family is:

                       “Basketball Rule #1

           In this game of life

           Your family is the court

           And the ball is your heart

           No matter how good you are,

           No matter how down you get,

           Always leave

           Your heart

           On the court.”

                              -Kwame Alexander 

As close as the Bells are, there is significance in this being the first “rules” poem. The family goes through a lot and somehow, they’re still able to hold this value, even if it isn’t immediate. There are quite a few scenes in the book where we see this take place and the first one stretches almost the entire course of the book.    

           The first scenario where this rule applies is when his brother gets a girlfriend, Alexis, also known as Miss Sweet Tea. When JB starts dating Alexis, Josh lets the envy of everything in his brother’s life get to him like JB improving in basketball, getting a girlfriend and subsequently spending less time with him. Instead of keeping family first and being happy for him, Josh allows the jealousy to build up to such a point that an aggressive pass by Josh during one of the brothers’ games lands JB in the hospital with injuries close to a bloody nose. All of this then results in a fight and the boys giving each other the silent treatment.

           As the story goes on, we learn that their father has become sick, and at this point Josh and JB still aren’t really speaking. Once their father passes though, everything changes, Josh makes amends with his brother and Alexis, and the boys return to being on speaking terms again. Although Josh may have lost sight of this first rule in his game of life, it eventually returned, even if it was under unfortunate circumstances.

             The Bells may have their life revolve around basketball, but they always make time for what matters. Once their father dies Josh and JB have to mature faster than they would have thought. Just like Josh practices and masters the crossover in basketball, he mimics the same actions when it comes time to put basketball aside for other important things, like family. Not only is he making crossovers in the game, he’s also making them in the game of life—and in the game of life, you can’t forget to leave the ball on the court…in both contexts.

Alexander, K. (2014). The Crossover. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

The Crossover premieres today

The Crossover, the new TV series from Kwame Alexander, Damani Johnson, and Kimberly A. Harrison, is out today.