The Hoopster

Currently, I am reading a new book called Last Shot by John Feinstein. It is about a young boy named Stevie who wins a junior journalism contest to go to the NCAA March Madness Final Four in New Orleans. Here he meets the other winner, Susan Carol, and they uncover a scandal about Minnesota State University's best player, Chip Garber, who is being blackmailed into throwing the game. The kids team up with Chip to try to stop this and that is where I have got to so far.

The next part of this blog has to do with my partner's, Lucas Wilton, author, Randall Munroe. The author of my current book, John Feinstein, has a completely different style than Munroe. Feinstein writes about sports and athletic events, but Munroe writes about science and physics. Munroe adds comic strips into his book, What If?, but Feinstein's book, Last Shot, does not. Yet both the authors include comedy into their books at times, Munroe more than Feinstein. 

The third and final part of this blog is how to find a book using BookLikes. One way someone could find a book is by scrolling over the dashboard icon and scrolling down to explore. There one can find blogs about books that people have read. By reading the review, you can tell if you would like the book or not! After doing so, one can go back to BookLikes's home screen and type in the search bar books that they want to learn more about.

Alan Lawrence Sitomer’s book the Hoopster relates to his life in a way. Sitomer is a highschool student in the Los Angeles area, got his college degree, his teaching degree, and his masters degree all in the state of California as well. Sitomer specializes in helping kids get back on track in their respective English classes. Because he teaches in the city of Los Angeles, he teaches an ethnically diverse group of kids, because big cities tend to have more broad diversity than a small town in Rhode Island. Sitomer wrote the book I am reviewing about a high school kid who happens to be a minority, which I think he got from teaching at his school. His students are inspirations to his writing, and he often has his students read his books before they are published to make sure they are appealing to kids. Sitomer’s book the Hoopster definitely relates to his personal life in a way.

One of the most powerful quotes of the Hoopster by Lawrence Sitomer was"Cedric bellowed at the top of his lungs, stomping his foot like a modern-day Martin Luther King Jr. 'You cannot oppress us any longer! Our people will rise and drink from the water fountains again.'". This is in the first chapter when Cedric is complaining about a waterfountian at the basketball court that is broken. It may be used in a funny context in the time, but it resinates throughout the story.

In the late parts of the book when Andre is attacked for writing an article about racial equality, he is baffled and does not talk for weeks. After he storms out of the house one night, Shawn comes to find him and Andre finally cracks. He is later awarded for that article and gives a speach abou.t rising up in the right way. He does not adviocate violence, but instead he advocates for people to stand up to racial injustices peacefully. This all comes back to the quote Cedric says in the first chapter that forshadows the plot of the story

Hi, my name is Patrick Keating and I will occasionally be reviewing the novel, the Hoopster, by Alan Sitomer over the course of the next 14 days.

The book starts out reviewing the main character, which most novels do, but this one was different. Our story starts on a basketball court with a bunch of older high schoolers playing a pickup game. Here we learn some of our main character Andre, who is a young black man who is a great basketball player and has even better writing skills. Also, we learn about Shawn, Andre's white, cocky, best friend. At the end of the game, Andre's cousin Cedric, who is not very serious, yet very confident, tries to win it on a bad shot and blows the game.

When the game is over, Shawn and Andre are listening to Cedric's speech about the broken water fountain and listens to how Cedric thinks it is because they are in a "black neighborhood". Andre and Shawn get in Andre's car and Andre drives Shawn home. They stop in at Shawn's house and have a fun, yet weird time and then Andre leaves. 

The next day, Andre goes to his job at the Affairs magazine company, where he is an intern who sits next to the printer and copier and never gets a real story to work on. We hear about his boss, Mr. Jarvin, and a few of his coworkers. Andre overhears a conversation with one of his coworkers, Ed, and Mr. Jarvin, in which Ed makes a bunch of racist remarks about the writing industry and black people in general. Mr. Jarvin notices that Andre has overheard the conversation and then confronts him about the conversation, and this is where our reading ends.

So far, this book is shaping to have a good plot. Andre is becoming a well-developed character in the story who could have a huge impact on the community around him, especially through writing. I love sports books like these and I have never seen one so deep as the Hoopster. This is Patrick Keating, signing off.