Book Review of Slam by Walter Dean Myers This past semester I read the book Slam by Walter Dean Myers. The setting is in a run down part of town in a big city that was un-ginven. The story line is that Slam the main character is going to a new school that is a white school where he once went to a predominately was black and so is he. He is a senior going into a new school because of his grades; he also came from a school where he was one of the best basketball players. His friend was the best player for his old school. He also has a girl that he likes and the start going out. His dad does not work well not all the time his grandma is dying. The main characters are Slam, Goldy. One of the big parts in this book in when he makes the team. When tryouts came he was not look on that well mainly because he was black and he had an atitude. He played the coach one on one and he slammed on him and blocked him. But he did make the team. Then he lost the camera that he borrowed from the media center for a project. In his first game he didn't start and didn't play in the first half. He got really mad a Goldy calmed him down. They were tied at half time and at the end they beat them by 11. And that is how many points that Slam had in the game after the first half. He went out with his friend Ice and two other girls and he made out with one of them. The other girl told his girlfriend that they were kissing and she got all mad and the sort of broke up. Then he played one of the best teams in the league and this white guy tore him up so that got his confidence down. After that his friend Ducky was standing up for Slam because two of the other kids on the team didn't like Slam and the ended up getting in a fight. They never got along because Nick the guy that he fought was talking about how he was getting scouted and that Slam wasn't. Slam knew that he was better that him that he was not getting the chances that Nick was.
Jack is the biggest character in this book. Jack is a 12-year-old boy that is very good at baseball and very passionate about it as well. He lives in a fairly big city in New York called, Walton. His family has lived there his whole life and the baseball tradition kept on. His father played for the same baseball team that jack is playing for when he was a young kid. Jack was described in the book as big tall, average build, blonde hair, and a good head on his shoulders. Jack’s personality wasn’t really noticeable until later in the book. At the beginning of the book he was just an average kid that loved to play baseball. He had his normal friends that he hung out with every day and an older brother that he really looked up to. Jack loved his friends and his family just as much as he loved baseball. Then one day when jack got home his mother and father were crying and when he asked why they were crying they said that his brother had died is a tragic motorcycle accident. This tore Jack up inside more than anyone would have ever thought. As a result of his brother’s death he quit baseball and shunned some of his friends. When he did this he come to get really close to a girl that he started hanging out with. Her name was Cassie and she was the reason he was able to hold it all
He explains all his difficulties through his senior year in Cidal college, in South Carolina. His abusive parents, his teammates, his coach all which lead him to become a powerful person. His memoir about his basketball career and the affects he had amongst people caused him to have a magnificent book revealing the insides he had with his teammates. Don Conroy, his abusive father, wasn’t there to keep him going but only held him back from going too far. His coach and his father were people who brought him down into believing there is no good in the world. He had a rough time growing up , but he knew he had to keep proving them all wrong. Fighting through his troubles in life, Pat only did not become a great basketball player but a great writer. This memoir, remembering all the extravagant memories he had in college with his friends, yet he did have hard times but pushed through it. Not complaining he didn’t just push himself, but he also pushed his teammates into becoming something greater. In the end, he will forever remember all his fights and great memories he had with his special teammates at Cidal college, it led him into becoming a great leader at the end of
In John Feinstein’s Foul Trouble, Danny, a basketball player, experiences the tough NCAA restrictions. Terell and Danny were on their way to the most elite showcase basketball camp in the country. They arrive at the camp and make their way inside. All kinds of diverse reporters and television hosts swarmed Terrell. Danny was feeling as if he does not belong there. He walked into the building and sat on the bleachers. The whole place was teeming with college coaches. Danny could not wait to start the camp games. Coach Wilcox, Danny’s father, was also very eager.
Having a big ego and too much self confidence can ruin a person’s ability to see the consequences of their actions, and make good choices in life. The book Slam is a book about a boy who switches schools and has to learn how to fit into his new school. He has a hard time keeping his grades up and getting along with the teachers, students, and coaches. In the story, Slam!, by Walter Dean Myers, Slam doesn’t foresee the consequences of his actions because of his ego, his immatureness, and his self confidence.
Outcasts United by Warren St. John is a wonderful book about a community of refugees who live in Clarkston, Georgia and their struggles to adapt with foreign environment of the United States. The book tells the stories of refugees that come from different background and countries in which they are connected together by an American- educated Jordanian woman called Luma Mufleh. Despite their difficulties in establishing new identity, they found their passion in soccer and with Luma Mufleh as their coach they create a soccer team called Fugees. In the early chapters of the book, it illustrates the difficulties to make a group of kids from different background unite and work together but later, Luma’s program become popular throughout the neighborhood. Children are happy to spend their spare time playing soccer while parents are glad they can keep the children off the streets when they are working. Regardless their effort to bring together the children into a team, they have to face bad sentiments from the local residents when they are kicked out from the training field and forced to occupy other place as their training field. The Fugees team also have little supporter as their parents are working and become a subject of humiliation. Nevertheless, Luma is able to maintain the team spirit and expanded her program to include tuition for the soccer team. Throughout the stories, some kids stay while others give up the program due to influence of gang and other incidents but the remaining members who stay are able to achieve recognition and find new opportunities for better living in the community.
Development: The narrative follows part of these students' lives during a year at college, they are in each other's lives whether they know it or not. There are parallels drawn between them as the narrative progresses: Peace V War, Aggression V Pacifism, sides are taken and the racial lines are clear- stick to your own group like glue. How they fit in with the rest of the college population, Malik does this better than Remy and Kristen- he heads straight for the black population.
The main character is completely alienated from the world around him. He is a black man living in a white world, a man who was born in the South but is now living in the North, and his only form of companionship is his dying wife, Laura, whom he is desperate to save. He is unable to work since he has no birth certificate—no official identity. Without a job he is unable to make his mark in the world, and if his wife dies, not only would he lose his lover but also any evidence that he ever existed. As the story progresses he loses his own awareness of his identity—“somehow he had forgotten his own name.” The author emphasizes the main character’s mistreatment in life by white society during a vivid recollection of an event in his childhood when he was chased by a train filled with “white people laughing as he ran screaming,” a hallucination which was triggered by his exploration of the “old scars” on his body. This connection between alienation and oppression highlight Ellison’s central idea.
Tryouts came and went, along with freshman year. Jesse did his normal thing - rack up rebounds, block lots of shots, score point after point. Sophomore and junior years went much the same. They had won a state championship in his junior year; Jesse had twenty points, seventeen rebounds, six assists, and four blocks. Finally, Jesse had reached his senior season, his last at Harwood. He’d shot up to six-foot ten and was benching 400 easily. He took a moment to duck into Coach Paterson’s office.
In the book, the authors detail the lives of the players and those around them. The impact of being away from family also takes center stage, from dealing with the death of parents and siblings to coping with changes in family dynamics. The game of basketball also helped the girls get away from the Indian Wars and the Dawes Act that had occurred before the boarding school was founded. For many of the girls, basketball was a grounding force that continued to foster an important sisterhood among team members.
There once was a man and a woman, and they had a son named Timmy. Timmy was tall and lengthy with very long legs. When he grew up, he wanted to be a professional basketball player. He had the height and quickness but not really the other skills like shooting and agility. In fact, most people considered Timmy as mediocre or developing. Timmy`s parents informed him of a competition where there would be a competitive and a developmental team Each team would play 10 games against their level, and then there would be a tournament to determine a champion. Timmy decided to register and soon learned that tryouts would be next week.
Him and Rowdy have been friends for 14 years. In fact, they “have spent 40,880 hours in each other’s company” (Alexie 24). But, when Junior makes the hard decision of attending Rearden, an all white school, Rowdy does not take the news well. Consequently, when Junior informed Rowdy of this, Rowdy punches Junior in the face and leaves him behind. Because Rowdy and Junior have been friends for so long, Junior continues to pursue and attempting to regain Rowdy’s friendship. Junior had sent numerous emails and hand drawn cartoons to Rowdy, but Rowdy did not reciprocate the same actions. After trying to regain Rowdy’s friendship throughout the entire school year, Junior and Rowdy played a game of basketball and they “didn’t keep score” (Alexie 230). Because Junior was persistent in interacting with Rowdy they eventually became friends
Harper Lee wrote the novel To kill a Mockingbird where she explores the segregation during the early 1930´s where Atticus Finch is one of the main characters. Presented with a case of a colored man accused of rape in Maycomb, Alabama. At the time, segregation in the U.S was at its peak, with the newest case of Tom Robinson, that Atticus needs to defend. His kids, Scout and Jem are slowly adapting to the new reality of a white man protecting a colored case, provoking the town of Maycomb. Something similar from our world put in context would be, The Grio: A boy of color pulled out of school by parents, after harassments as: monkey and aggressive attacks about his color. The case touches the subject Tom Robinson and colored people
The power of expectation begins to show when Arnold reflects the expectations he had on the reserve and at Reardan, and preceding the rematch against Reardan, Basketball helps to build healthy relationships which are evident in Rowdy and Arnold’s friendship, and his relationship between the Reardan students. And the impact of support is evident when Arnold compares the reactions of the different schools, and how they directly affect his performance and again in the events preceding the rematch against Wellpinit. Even something as insignificant as basketball which may not seem like something impactful at first glance, it can change an individual's life
After all the trouble Allen got to choose to return to his old high school Bethel. He didn’t go back to his school and decided to work with a tutor to earn his high school diploma. While this was going on his mother contacted georgetown university coach, John Thompson and convinced him that her son would be the best player for him. He was conceived and set up a meeting with Allen. John was impressed with talking to him and also watching him in workouts. That he put down a scholarship on the table. Allen took this scholarship and arrived on campus for a fresh start.
Published in 2016, Blackass, a novel by A. Igoni Barrett, is a story set in present-day Lagos, Nigeria. The main character, Furo Wariboko, a chronically unemployed college graduate, is shocked to wake up with white skin, barring the one exception: his black behind. Furo rushes to his salesperson interview, and upon seeing his skin, an executive, Arinze, offers him a more lucrative position. Furo, broke and unable to face his family, then meets Igoni, a writer who secretly takes interest in his story and his family’s quest to find him. Furo also meets Syreeta, who invites him stay with her. After they develop a sexual relationship, Furo discovers that Syreeta, who lives a comfortable life, is supported by a married man. The narrative shifts