Pick-Up Game: A Full Day of Full Court

Aronson, Marc; Smith Jr., Charles R.

ISBN 10: 1469249340 ISBN 13: 9781469249346

Publisher: Candlewick on Brilliance Audio, 2012

Synopsis

It’s one single steamy July day at the West 4th Street Court in NYC, otherwise known as the Cage. Hotshot baller ESPN is wooing the scouts, Boo is struggling to guard the weird new guy named Waco, a Spike Lee wannabe has video rolling, and virgin Irene is sizing up six-foot-eight-and-a-half-inch-tall Chester. Nine of YA literature’s top writers reveal how it all goes down in this searing novel in short stories that ingeniously pick up where the last one ends. Characters weave in and out of narratives, perspectives change, and emotions play out for a fluid and fast-paced ode to the game. Crackling with humor, grit, and streetball philosophy, and featuring poems by Charles R. Smith Jr., this anthology is a slam dunk.

About this title

About the Author

Marc Aronson has a doctorate in American history and is a member of the graduate faculty in the library school at Rutgers. He is an editor and author of many award-winning books for young people, including War Is...Soldiers, Survivors, and Storytellers Talk About War, which he co-edited with Patty Campbell. Marc Aronson lives in New Jersey.

From School Library Journal

Gr 8 Up-Some of the most distinguished names in YA literature are represented in this collection of linked stories set on a celebrated New York City playground basketball court known as the Cage. Such luminaries as Walter Dean Myers, Bruce Brooks, Rita Williams-Garcia, and Robert Lipsyte examine the ways in which players, wannabes, and hangers-on interact in the vibrant, freewheeling subculture of inner-city playground hoops. All of the action takes place on one day, with recurring characters. The contributors offer different takes on them, forcing readers to consider the individuals from a variety of points of view. It is fascinating to see how these writers bring their own unique social and artistic vision to the portrayal of the individuals who weave in and out of the narratives. The stories are of uniformly high quality; one of the real crowd-pleasers is Sharon G. Flake's "Virgins Are Lucky," which stars a sassy, self-respecting girl who decides not to text the handsome star player who has so casually given her his number. Other characters who will live on in readers' memories are Adam Rapp's smart-mouthed, sensitive eighth-grader recently rescued from homelessness by a brooding Iraq War veteran and Joseph Bruchac's Native American man, stricken with respiratory problems as a result of his rescue work at the World Trade Center. Tying all the stories together is a shared love and respect not only for the game itself, but also for the lavishly talented (and all-too-often fatally flawed) legends of New York City playground basketball. An outstanding collection that belongs in every high school library.-Richard Luzer, Fair Haven Union High School, VT (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

About this edition

• Publisher: Candlewick on Brilliance Audio
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1469249340
• ISBN 13: 9781469249346
• Binding: MP3 CD