Hoops

• Genre: Fiction; young adult sports/realistic
• Originally Published: 1981
• Reading Level/Interest: Lexile 740L; grades 7-9
• Structure/Length: 9 chapters; approx. 224 pages
• Protagonist and Central Conflict: Seventeen-year-old Lonnie Jackson has a reputation for athletic prowess on the basketball court and dreams of major success. His stardom and future are on the line, though, when his coach Cal receives a tempting offer to throw the city’s Tournament of Champions by benching Lonnie.
• Potential Sensitivity Issues: Profanity; protagonist drinks and smokes; sexual content; physical assault; murder; gang activity; firearms

Walter Dean Myers, Author

• Bio: 1937-2014; born in in West Virginia; raised in Harlem; struggled in school but enjoyed reading and writing; joined the army after quitting high school; began writing inspired by his own experiences; writer of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry for young readers; won five Coretta Scott King Awards and two Newbery Honors; first writer to be awarded the Michael L. Printz Award (for Monster, 1999); received the ALA Margaret A. Edwards Award (1994), a lifetime achievement honor for YA literature; served as the Library of Congress’s National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature; prolific writer of over 110 works
• Other Works: The Outside Shot (1984); Motown and Didi (1984); Amistad: A Long Road to Freedom (1997); Harlem Summer (2007)
• Awards: ALA Best Book for Young Adults (1981); Edgar Allan Poe Award Nominee (1981)