by Marc Aronson
Robert Lipsyte is a longtime sports and city columnist for the New York Times. He is also the author of the young adult novels The Contender, One Fat Summer, and Center Field. In 2001, he won the Margaret A. Edwards Award from the American Library Association for lifetime contribution to young adult literature. While he grew up in New York believing that one-wall handball was the true city game, he never lost his deadly underhand free throw. Because of his enormous respect, he will never dunk on Walter Dean Myers.
Charles R. Smith Jr. says, “Basketball has been good to me. I’ve loved the game for as long as I can remember, and it has provided me with endless stories, poetry, and photographs that have filled many of my books, including this one. When I moved to NYC from my native California, the street game caught my eye. I carried my ball and camera with me everywhere, from Soul in the Hole in Brooklyn, to Rucker in Harlem, to West 4th Street in Manhattan. I took pictures of modern playground legends like Main Event, Booger, Future, Alimoe the Black Widow, and future NBA players like Smush Parker and Ron Artest, just to name a few. I photographed all of them plying their trade and scribbled notes when a particularly interesting nickname or piece of dialogue was exchanged and saved it for later. Well, now is later and all that time spent on my feet has provided me with a career in books. I have plenty of books on other topics, but when it comes to ball, that’s a well that never runs dry.”
Charles R. Smith Jr. is the author of several books for children, including the Coretta Scott King Honor winner Twelve Rounds to Glory: The Story of Muhammad Ali and the Coretta Scott King Award winner My People, along with plenty of books on basketball, including Rimshots, Short Takes, Hoop Queens, Hoop Kings, and, for the youngest of readers, Let’s Play Basketball!
Marc Aronson is an editor and author of many award-winning books for young people, including War Is . . . : Soldiers, Survivors, and Storytellers Talk About War, which he coedited with Patty Campbell, and Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom, and Science, which he cowrote with Marina Budhos. His book Sir Walter Ralegh and the Quest for El Dorado won the Robert F. Sibert Medal and a Boston Globe–Horn Book Award. Marc Aronson lives in New Jersey.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the authors’ imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Compilation copyright © 2011 by Marc Aronson and Charles R. Smith Jr.
Photographs copyright © 2011 by Charles R. Smith Jr.
“Step into the Arena,” “Next,” “My Boys,” “Wild Cats,” “El Profesor,” “The Fire Inside,” “Back in the Day,” “24/7,” and “Represent” copyright © 2011 by Charles R. Smith Jr.
“Cage Run” copyright © 2011 by Walter Dean Myers
“Laws of Motion” copyright © 2011 by Bruce Brooks
“Mira Mira” copyright © 2011 by Willie Perdomo
“Virgins Are Lucky” copyright © 2011 by Sharon G. Flake
“Practice Don’t Make Perfect” copyright © 2011 by Robert Burleigh
“He’s Gotta Have It” copyright © 2011 by Rita Williams-Garcia
“Head Game” copyright © 2011 by Joseph Bruchac
“Just Shane” copyright © 2011 by Adam Rapp
“The Shoot” copyright © 2011 by Robert Lipsyte
Afterword copyright © 2011 by Marc Aronson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
First electronic edition 2014
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Pick-up game / edited by Marc Aronson & Charles R. Smith.
— 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: A series of short stories by such authors as Walter Dean Myers, Rita Williams-Garcia, and Joseph Bruchac, interspersed with poems and photographs, provides different perspectives on a game of streetball played one steamy July day at the West 4th Street court in New York City known as The Cage.
ISBN 978-0-7636-4562-5 (hardcover)
[1. Basketball — Fiction. 2. Interpersonal relations — Fiction. 3. African Americans — Fiction. 4. New York (N.Y.) — Fiction.]
I. Aronson, Marc. II. Smith, Charles R., date.
PZ5.P55 2011
[Fic] — dc22 2010038694
ISBN 978-0-7636-6068-0 (paperback)
ISBN 978-0-7636-7188-4 (electronic)
Candlewick Press
99 Dover Street
Somerville, Massachusetts 02144
visit us at www.candlewick.com