Jump Ball: A Basketball Season in Poems

by Mel Glenn

Book Overview

The Tower High Tigers basketball team is on top of the world and bringing the crowds to their feet in this collection of free prose poems that make up the absorbing story of a championship teams... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 052567554X
• ISBN13: 9780525675549
• Release Date: August 1997
• Publisher: Dutton Books for Young Readers
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.8" x 8.6"
• Age Range: 10 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 5 and higher

Customer Reviews

A Book for everyone( Jump Ball)

If you love Basketball you'll love this book, if you don't like basketball you'll love this book. Jump Ball is a book for all. This book creates real life scenarios for everyone to enjoy.You may get attached to the coach or the coaches wife or maybe one of the players or their girlfriends. Jump Ball is about high school and Jr. high students that are trying out for basketball and the struggles that are going on behind the scenes of the basketball court. These kids eat, sleep, and drink basketball. You learn about the things they go through with their girlfriends and the things the girls go through with their boyfriends. You may just fall in love with some of the characters and the way they live their life. If you are a Teen that loves to read on books that relate to you THIS IS THE BOOK!Jaw dropping, head turning type of book that you will want to read over and over again.I personally love this book if you take my advice you would love it too!You will not want to miss a beat of this book. Short read and great to learn from, I suggest you read this!

Lives of Student Athletes

Tower High School has a very good basketball team this year, including the star, Garrett James, who is expected to become a pro after this year. That's the story the media has picked up. But anyone who has ever been on a team knows that there is a lot more to a team than one person's story. This book tells those stories. Sure, Garrett is a star, but there's also Tamba Senesie from Nigeria, who is upset that his father isn't respected here like he was in their homeland. There's Juliette Paris, who is pregnant and trying to get her basketball-playing boyfriend to take some responsibility. There's Tyrone Porter with the heart problem that may make him unable to play this year. There's Valdeen DeForest of the girls' volleyball team, who is angry that only boys' sports get credit at her school. There's Vonessa Leighton, the team manager who is madly in love with one of the guys on the team. And there are countless others. As you read each poem in this book, you get a feel for what each of the characters are feeling about the game of basketball and the other things they have going on in their lives. Then you realize that the book is giving you snapshot views into one season of basketball, a season that ends in a shocking event. Many books about sports simply focus on the sport itself as motivation for the characters. This book, though, shows the reader that each one of these students has a pile of other things on his or her mind--that their own lives are more important than the sport.

Good Book

Jump ball was a very good book. It keep you gussing. I like the way the poems were they would talk about one person and then they would talk about someone else. I would recamend it to other people. I would recamend it to people how like peoms and basketball. It was a good book and I liked it.

one of the best books!!!!

i read this book in my LA class. It affected everyone. This is a book that you can really get into and it keeps you guessing. Theres something mysterious that the whole town is talking about and you don't find it out untill the end!! it teaches kids lessons and many things that they can relate to like teanage pregnency i loved reading this book! i thought that it was very realistic and if you never liked reading those books about magic and faries then this is a great book it's something different i've never read a book like it i think 99% of people would like it

Poetry, Basketball and Drama

This is a journey of a high school's basketball team through one season a winning season. But a tragedy hits the team and the school. It is done in first person poetry. The reader hears many different voices. These voice include of players, students, teachers, their families and the media. There is a connection to the school and the team that builds through the story. This is a fast read. The poems have a rhythm to them that moves you through basketball and the story. If a reader was ever skeptical about poetry or reading, this book would be a great asset.