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Learning to Bounce Back

STEPHEN BLUE FOR TIME FOR KIDS

In Rebound, the new book by Kwame Alexander, Charlie Bell can’t seem to make the right choices after a family tragedy. But then he spends the summer with grandparents, using his newfound love of basketball to get back on track. Rebound is told through poems describing Charlie’s summer. “I think basketball is poetry in motion,” Alexander says. “So I thought how cool it was to combine these two things.”

STEPHEN BLUE FOR TIME FOR KIDS

Alexander spoke with TFK Kid Reporter Marley Alburez. He said the book was inspired by his mother’s death. “I’m trying to rebound in my life, so I wrote a story about a kid trying to rebound in his.”

The novel is a prequel to The Crossover. But Alexander says you don’t have to read that book to understand his latest.

Alexander’s advice to readers? “There are a bunch of books out there, you just gotta search for the ones that you really like and read them.”