Slam!

• Genre: Fiction; middle grade sports
• Originally Published: 1996
• Reading Level/Interest: Lexile 750L; grades 7-9
• Structure/Length: 21 chapters; approx. 272 pages; approx. 5 hours, 5 minutes on audio
• Protagonist/Central Conflict: Seventeen-year-old Greg “Slam” Harris is unstoppable on the basketball court. Slam transfers to a top-notch school to play, knowing that he’s more likely to catch the attention of NBA scouts at a better school. But the transition isn’t as smooth as he thought it might be. As Slam juggles school, basketball, his girlfriend, and the realization that his best friend might be selling drugs, his grades start to slip, jeopardizing everything. If Slam wants to hold it all together, he must bring the same passion for basketball to his everyday life.
• Potential Sensitivity Issues: Substance use/addiction; mild language; mild sexual content; briefly mentions sexual assault

Walter Dean Myers, Author

• Bio: 1937-2014; American writer of books for young people; raised in Harlem; used writing to escape tough childhood; dropped out of high school to join the Army on his 17th birthday; inspired to write novels after reading Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin; wrote over 100 books during his 45-year career; National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature from 2012-2013 and used the slogan, “Reading is Not Optional”; We Need Diverse Books named a grant and award after him for his call for a more complete representation of Black people in children’s books
• Other Works: Fast Sam, Cool Clyde, and Stuff (1975); The Golden Serpent (1980); Hoops (1981); Motown and Didi: A Love Story (1984); Invasion (2013)
• Awards: Coretta Scott King Award (1997); ALA Best Book for Young Adults (1997); M.