Pick-Up Game: A Full Day of Full Court
Pick-Up Game: A Full Day of Full Court
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Overview
"Nine all-stars in the field of YA lit contribute stories. . . . An anthology of stand-alone stories that invite — no, demand — a straight read-through." — Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books (starred review)
Nine of YA literature’s top writers, including Walter Dean Myers, Rita Williams-Garcia, Adam Rapp, Joseph Bruchac, and Sharon Flake reveal how it all goes down in a searing collection of short stories, in which each one picks up where the previous 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 of street basketball. Crackling with humor, grit, and streetball philosophy, and featuring poems and photographs by Charles R. Smith Jr., this anthology is a slam dunk.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780763671884 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Candlewick Press |
| Publication date: | 02/11/2014 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Lexile: | 720L (what's this?) |
| File size: | 6 MB |
| Age Range: | 14 Years |
About the Author
Marc Aronson 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 coedited with Patty Campbell, and Sugar Changed the World, which he cowrote with Marina Budhos. Marc Aronson lives in New Jersey.
Charles R. Smith Jr. won the 2010 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award for his photographs in My People by Langston Hughes. He is also the author and photographer of Winning Words: Sports Stories and Photographs and the author of Hoop Queens, Hoop Kings, Chameleon, and Twelve Rounds to Glory: The Story of Muhammad Ali, winner of a Coretta Scott King Author Award Honor. Charles R. Smith Jr. lives in Poughkeepsie, New York.
Marc Aronson is living proof of the magic of the world of writing books for young readers. He did not expect this to be his career—he went to New York University, where he earned a doctorate in American history, and worked in adult reference publishing. But when he saw an advertisement for an editor of a series of books about the lands and peoples of the world (The Portraits of the Nations series, originally published by Lippencott)—books he had grown up reading and loving—he applied for and won the job. Working on books for young people—and then meeting other authors and artists, reviewers, librarians, teachers—he found he was in a world he loved. Editing books about different nations, peoples, and cultures, he came to realize he wanted to publish fiction and poetry, as well as nonfiction for young people. He created Edge—a place for books that explored all of the borders and boundaries in growing up, from immigration to coming-of-age. He then began to write his own books.
Marc’s older son once asked him why his first book, Art Attack, was so different from the others. It is the one book he has written about art; all the others in some way relate to history or current events. In a way he experienced in nonfiction what many novelists go through: his first book was the most autobiographical. Marc grew up learning about radical art, avant-garde art, from his father, who was a painter and innovative scenic designer. The book was a form of passing on what he had learned. While all of his books are nonfiction, they all also have a personal dimension—a way that person, subject, idea, spoke to him. Marc grew up in a school where many families had suffered from the Red Scare, a school devoted to racial integration when that was the law, but often not the practice. Master of Deceit is, in a way, Marc visiting his own childhood and looking at the conflicts he grew up hearing about with his trained adult eyes.
Marc now wears many hats, he is part of the graduate faculty in the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers University, where he trains librarians and teachers in using books with K–12 readers. He gives talks in schools to students, trains teachers and librarians—especially on the new Common Core standards, and he is exploring how nonfiction can flourish in the world of e-books and apps. For example, for Master of Deceit, he has found a film, You Can’t Get Away With It, that was crafted for J. Edgar Hoover and fits perfectly with chapter 7 (you can see the original poster for it on page 62). You can see the entire film for free by going to his website, www.marcaronson.com, where he also has a discussion guide for the book and other resources.
“Many hours were spent with characters in books traveling the world, solving mysteries, or living in a different time in history,” says photographer and children’s book author Charles R. Smith Jr. of his California childhood. “Reading books filled with stories and poems inspired me to write my own. The more I read, the more I wrote. And if I wasn’t reading a book, I was playing a sport: I played everything, particularly basketball, and spent many afternoons on the court, perfecting my jump shot.”
In high school, Charles R. Smith Jr. found a new love: photography. “Right up until that point I wanted to be an astronaut and walk on the moon, but after taking yearbook pictures nonstop for a year, I knew I wanted to learn how to be a professional photographer.” However, even after graduating from photography school and moving to New York to pursue his dream, Charles R. Smith Jr. did not forget about his childhood pastimes. “I continued with my writing, and, with a heavy influence of rap music, began writing more poetry instead of stories.”
Today, Charles R. Smith Jr. combines his experiences in these three areas—writing, photography, and sports —in his work with children’s books. This fusion is evident in his first book with Candlewick Press, Hoop Queens, a collection of dynamic poems and photographs celebrating twelve female pro-basketball players. Charles R. Smith Jr.’s companion book, Hoop Kings, cheers male professional basketball stars. He is also the author-photographer of Rimshots: Basketball Pix, Rolls, and Rhythms, which was selected as an American Library Association Notable Children’s Book.
And for those interested in biography, Twelve Rounds to Glory: The Story of Muhammad Ali, illustrated by Bryan Collier and named a Coretta Scott King Author Award Honor Book, follows the three-time heavyweight champ. Of the distinctive niche Charles R. Smith Jr. fills with his books, he notes, “I have combined my photographic skills with my love of reading, writing, and sports to create an exciting career for myself!” For which fans of poetry, photography, and sports are grateful!
Charles R. Smith Jr. lives in New York with his wife and two children.
What People are Saying About This
Nine all-stars in the field of YA lit contribute stories...an anthology of standalone stories that invite - no, demand - a straight read-through.
—Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
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 od New York City playground basketball. An outstanding collection that belongs in every high school library.
—School Library Journal
Superb stories by writers who know and love the game; and ode to the show.
—Kirkus Reviews