“The poems were cool. The best ones were like bombs, and when all the right words came together it was like an explosion.”

I’m still making my way through the constantly growing pile of books I need to read for work. I need to be able to comment on some of our “new and noteworthy” books picks, so if parents or teachers want recommendations, I can easily help them out. Oh, your kid likes dark fantasy and Neil Gaiman? Try The Girl Who Drank The Moon. You say your kid likes sports, but really isn’t much of a reader? Well, then get some books by Kwame Alexander. And get them now.

These books are my first foray into reading stories told in prose. I wasn’t quite sure how it would work, and to be honest, I didn’t think it would work for me. These are books about middle school boys who play sports — how could I possibly be interested in that?

I’ll tell you — when the writing is good enough, you can be interested in anything.

Crossover was Alexander’s Newbery Award winner from a few years ago, which tells the story of twin brothers Josh and JB, basketball stars at their middle school, and sons of a former NBA player and local legend.

Their whole lives have been about basketball and each other. But that all changes when JB gets a girlfriend for the first time. Josh is jealous and angry, and he takes it out on his brother, both in and off the court. Josh has a lot to learn about what makes a champion, other than just skill.

A loss is inevitable,
like snow in winter.
True champions
learn
to dance
through
the storm.

We follow the boys and their family through their basketball season, right up through the playoffs. And I am not ashamed to admit that this book made me cry. Sob. Weep. I was bawling at the end. Seriously. A poem about basketball brought me to a complete stop and caused me to lose it.

The second book I was able to read was Booked — a story about a boy named Nick who’s whole world is soccer…until his parents decide to separate and his mom moves out of state.

He and his dad aren’t especially close. His dad spends all of his time writing a new type of dictionary, which he expects Nick to read…ALL THE WAY FROM A TO Z. He doesn’t understand his dad, who doesn’t understand his son’s love for soccer. They love each other, but don’t quite get each other.

“It’s just hard to love someone who cancels the cable right before the Walking Dead marathon.”

Nick leans on his friends, his awesomely geeky rapping school librarian, his teammates, and his new “special” friend, the lovely April to help him through this weird time in his life, in which Nick says he is:

“as confused
as a chameleon
in a bag
of gummy worms”

And I can’t help but love a character who wears a shirt that says I LIKE BIG BOOKS AND I CANNOT LIE. Seriously, that guy was the best.

These are two wonderful coming-of-age books that both sports and non-sports fans will like. I see the 5th and 6th grade boys at our school checking these out all the time, and now I totally get it. But hey, these books are for girls, too! Girls play soccer and basketball and have families and go to middle school, JUST LIKE BOYS. The life lessons in these books are for everyone.