The Plot In Five Sentences Or Less: Josh and his twin brother JB both love basketball and are powering their high school team to the county championships. Their father, who was once a professional basketball player, has taught them everything they know about the game and couldn’t be prouder of their success. Although there has always been a good natured rivalry between the twins, the tension increases when JB gets a girlfriend. With his father’s health failing, Josh finds himself in a place that he’s never been before: alone.
My Take: I can understand why this verse novel won the Newberry Award this year. Kwame Alexander’s poetry captures well the emotional texture of Josh’s life, whether it’s the intensity of a basketball game or the simmering rivalry between twin brothers. The author’s use of ellipsis, of what is unsaid but understood, propels the narrative forward. Alexander never pesters the reader with details, but uses the verse form to put us in Josh’s shoes and allows us to feel what he feels. The final pages gave me goosebumps. Excellent read for ages 13+.
One Interesting Note About the Author: According to his website, Kwame Alexander has “written 18 books, owned several publishing companies, written for the stage and television (TLC’s “Hip Hop Harry”), recorded a CD, performed at schools and conferences around the world, produced jazz and book festivals, hosted a weekly radio show, worked for the U.S. Government, and taught in a high school.” Wow!
The Plot In Five Sentences Or Less: Samuel is a young man living on the edge of the Pennsylvania frontier with his parents in 1776 at the beginning of the Revolutionary War. Adept at hunting and comfortable in the woods, Samuel is out tracking game when he sees smoke rising on the horizon and realizes that Native Americans, allies with the British, have attacked his house. Learning that the British have captured his parents, Samuel must make his way to New York City and attempt to free them. Along the way he meets friends that will help him in his journey to restore some sense of peace to his life and the nation at large.
The Plot In Five Sentences Or Less: Theodora Tenpenny is a 13 year old who lives with her declining mother and her eccentric artist grandfather Jack in a townhouse that has seen better days. When Jack suddenly passes away, his last words to Theodora are cryptic: “It’s under the egg. There’s…a letter. And a treasure.” Desperate to pull her mother and herself out of penury, Theodora’s investigations lead her to the discovery of a painting that appears to be straight out of the renaissance. But is this truly a valuable piece that could bring in a windfall, or is it simply a fantastic forgery? Theodora’s explorations will turn up fascinating stories of her grandfather’s days in World War II and show her the importance of art in the darkest of times.
The Plot in Five Sentences Or Less: Bud Calloway is an orphan who never knew his father and whose mother died a few years ago. Bud springs himself from his next foster home and manages to hide out for a few nights outside the local public library. But the road beckons, and soon Bud is on his way to Grand Rapids to find his father. Along the way, he meets a lot of quirky characters who help him along in his quest. He eventually encounters a grumpy jazz musician who doesn’t fit his model of fatherhood.
The Plot In 5 Sentences Or Less: Jesse Alderman is the hook up man at Wakefield High, the guy who can get you anything–for a price. But when a big shot jock wants a shot at dating school hottie Bridget Smalley, Jesse’s real troubles begin. He ingratiates himself into her life and becomes good friends with her brother Pete who suffers from cerebral palsy. But as Jesse gets closer to Bridget and Pete, demons from his past begin to surface. The walls begin to close in on him as he understands that simply being smooth and untouchable is not enough.
The Plot In 5 Sentences: After Emily and Navin’s dad perishes in a horrible accident, their mother moves them to a spooky, rural house once owned by their grandfather. The children soon discover his old workshop as well as an amulet that Emily ties around her neck. That night, when a creature kidnaps their mom, the children chase after them and stumble into a strange world. There they learn that the amulet has magical powers and that they have been charged with using it to gain power over this weird place known as Alledia. With this knowledge, Emily and Navin embark on a dangerous adventure to find their mother.
The Plot In 5 Sentences Or Less: Polly lives in a bustling house full of children and loves to read and think about ghosts. Ruby has the opposite problem in that she feels abandoned by her family but has the unwanted power of seeing the dead. By accident one day, the girls discover that they are neighbors and that their attics connect. As they began to secretly visit each other through the attics, they began to learn about the tragic past of Ruby’s family. An aunt that passed away years before begins to visit the girls and brings with her a frightening message.
The Plot In Five Sentences Or Less: Will, raised as a ward of the castle and having never known his parents, faces his destiny on his Choosing Day. Hoping that he will go to fighting school, Will is surprised when the shadowy figure of Halt requests that Will join his team of Rangers, a stealthy band that polices and keeps watch over the realm. Will takes to his training well, mastering such Ranger arts as camouflage, stealth, and of knife throwing. As his skills mature, Will earns the respect of Halt and makes a name for himself by slaying a large wild boar in the forest. But the a wild boar is nothing compared to the dreaded and evil Kalkara, whom the evil lord Morgarath has sent on a mission to kill the Rangers.
The Plot In Five Sentences Or Less: Daphne and Sabrina have bounced among foster homes for the past few years ever since their parents passed away. Their latest foster mother is an eccentric old woman calling herself Mrs. Grimm and claiming to be the girls’s grandmother. She takes the girls to her old house stocked with eccentric items and, in time, strongly hints that the girls are part of an old family tradition of keeping fairy tale characters–known as everafters–in line and out of sight. The girls are mostly skeptical until the grandmother and her chauffeur are kidnapped by a giant. It’s up to Daphne and Sabrina to track down their grandmother, solve the mystery of why this giant is terrorizing the town, and live up to their family name of Grimm.
The Plot In Five Sentences Or Less: While mourning the disappearance of his father two years prior, Gregor and his younger sister Boots are sucked into an underworld through a grate in their apartment building’s laundry room. They soon discover thriving societies of crawlers (cockroaches), humans, spiders, and rats that live together through a fragile truce. Unfortunately, war is brewing as the humans believe that Gregor is the one predicted by an ancient prophecy to bring aid to their kingdom in the face of their enemy the rats. Not wanting to be entangled in the politics of the underworld, but desperate to find a way home, Gergor and Boots set out on a quest dangerous quest to fulfill the prophecy.
