Rebound

Reviews

Jazmin Jenkins

Charlie, aka Chuck, is struggling a lot, with grief, with apathy, with responsibility, with the first stirrings of love, with both the desire to and the fear of growing up. I'm a huge fan of novels-in-verse, particularly for engaging reluctant readers and those who 'don't like poetry' and Rebound is up there with the very best. Grandma is alright, but he'll miss his friends Skinny and CJ and his granddad is a hard taskmaster who want him up at dawn and pulling his weight.

C. Carter

I can’t wait to read Rebound I already read The Crossover and I just bought Booked too! I loving Kwame Alexander books so far!

Being sent to stay with grandparents for the summer is his worst nightmare. Came new! It's 1988, and Charlie is finding life tough.

The economy of language throughout this outstanding novel-in-verse is superb. His dad has died, he's falling behind at school, he can't focus and he just wants to be left alone to read comics all day.

More than earning its place on the CLiPPA 2019 poetry award shortlist, Rebound is an exceptional future classic. Dazzling.

The supporting characters are also fantastic, I particularly fell in love with bookish CJ and assertive Granddaddy. A great book to hook in basketball fans, of course, and the interspersed comic-strip pages will also appeal to many.

Rebound is a prequel to 2015's The Crossover (which I am now desperate to read) but also works perfectly as a stand alone. By end, Chuck has learned to rebound both on and off court. The term rebound (bouncing the ball off the backboard and into the net) is a metaphor for using assistance, not having to do everything alone. Luckily he soon escapes to the club, where with help from his cousin Roxie he begins to discover his latent basketball skills.