Strong to the Hoop
James has always settled for watching his big brother Nate play basketball from the sidelines. Then one day, a player is injured and James is asked to join the older boys’ game. This is James’ chance to prove himself on the main court, and he knows there is much more than “game point” riding on his last shot.
John Coy’s energetic prose captures the intensity and emotion of the competition, while Leslie Jean-Bart’s photo collages deliver the urban pace of the game.
International Reading Association
Visually stunning … This book is a wonderful example of the vibrancy of urban life and the importance of community and family.
KIRKUS Reviews
James, ten, makes the most of a sudden chance to run with the big boys in this hard-fought game of playground basketball. Stepping onto the main court and told to guard Marcus, a head taller and hard as a rock, James looks bad at first; his uncertainty fades as he gets into the rhythm of the game, and at last it’s his shot that makes the winning point. Coy (NIGHT DRIVING, 1996) tells the tale in unslangy prose, with brief bursts of dialogue and short, precise descriptions. The text is printed in a typeface aptly named ‘Blur Light,’ with chosen words in different sizes and colors. It’s an engrossing … debut for Jean-Bart; the full-color photograph-and-scratchboard collage illustrations, whose roughly inked edges give them an unfinished look, interpret the action literally, in a far more successful evocation of the game’s look and feel than that found in Charles R. Smith’s RIMSHOTS (1999). In the end, James slaps Marcus’s hand, then proudly turns to face the next quartet of challengers. Cleanly compelling.
School Library Journal
In this uniquely designed picture book, 10-year-old James finally gets to play basketball with his older brother’s friends and proves he can hold his own. Basketball terminology abounds (‘glides down the lane, flips a finger roll’) and should delight children who also yearn for the day when they will have the self-confidence to play with an older crowd.
Booklist
Playground basketball is always about a rite of passage: proving yourself able to play at the next level. It’s a metaphor for life in the larger world, of course, but it’s also an intense, image-rich world of its own. Author Coy and illustrator Jean-Bart capture that intensity in this well-realized picture book for older readers … Coy’s text moves with all the free-wheeling speed of playground ball, and the first-person narration captures James’ fear as well as his determination. Best of all, though, are Jean-Bart’s collage-style illustrations, produced by combining Polaroid photographs and scratchboard drawings. The result melds the realism of the players’ photos with the flat but evocative symbolism of the scratchboard settings (as if three-dimensional figures appeared on cave paintings). Real-life kids competing on a mythic playing field -that’s the message here, but you don’t need to understand it in those terms to feel its allure.