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Books Review: January 2008 eBA Best Seller

Game
By: Walter Dean Myers

Drew Lawson lives and breathes basketball. He plans to use basketball as his ticket out of Harlem, and everyone knows it. The problems start when Coach "House" Hauser changes the game plan.

The Lawson family is a bit unusual for their neighborhood. Drew is lucky to have both a mom and dad living under the same roof, and although money is a struggle, both parents work. He and his sister have been raised to value life and set high goals. News from their neighborhood only makes the paper when it is bad news. Shootings, stabbings, and robberies are the usual stories, and Drew's mother frets when those stories involve young people.

The Chargers basketball team could offer Drew a chance at a better life. He is a decent player and has his sights set on playing Division I college ball in hopes of being a future NBA player. As a star Chargers' player, it just might be possible. Unfortunately, it seems that Coach House has other plans.

It is mid-season and suddenly Coach House has brought in two new players - a couple of white players. That doesn't bother Drew and his team too much until it becomes evident that Coach plans to start these new players in positions that clearly threaten Drew's game. What is Coach trying to do? Is there a method to his madness or is Drew's future at stake?

GAME is set in Walter Dean Myers' home territory in Harlem, and is filled with his trademark characters and plenty of action. Readers hear Drew's story in between bouts of realistic play-by-play basketball scenes. Myers fans as well as basketball lovers will find this a satisfying read.

About the Author
Critically acclaimed and bestselling author Walter Dean Myers has garnered much respect and admiration for his fiction, nonfiction, and poetry for young people. Winner of the first Michael L. Printz Award for Monster, and five Coretta Scott King Awards, recipient of two Newbery Honors, and a National Book Award finalist for Autobiography of My Dead Brother, he is considered one of the preeminent writers for children. He lives in Jersey City, NJ.

Hardcover: 224 pages
Publisher: HarperTeen (January 2008)
Language: English

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