Review: Booked by Kwame Alexander

Published: 2016

Pages: 314

Synopsis: “Like lightning

You strike

Fast and free

Legs zoom

Down field

Eyes fixed

On the chequered ball

On the goal

Ten yards to go

Can’t nobody stop you

Can’t nobody cop you…

Nobody can stop Nick Hall – he’s a star on the football team, and life is about to get a whole lot sweeter when he asks out the girl of his dreams. But then a bombshell announcement shatters his world. Nick will need all his courage, both on and off the pitch

Rating: *****

I came across Booked while I was ploughing my way through the Carnegie Award 2017 longlist.

The main character, Nick plays football which is in direct contrast to his Father who is a linguistics professor and who seems to want his son to pursue an academic path as opposed to a sports one. I think this is a situation which many younger readers (especially boys) would be able to relate to. Booked was written in a style closer to prose than paragraphs, with the writing often only taking up the left hand side of the page (I’m probably not explaining this very well at all), and with a very clever use of footnotes in relation to Nick’s Dad. An example being:

‘Instead, your dad’s

a linguistics professor

with chronic verbomania*

as evidenced

by the fact

that he actually wrote

a dictionary

called The Weird and Wonderful World of Words

with,

get this

footnotes.

-------------------------------

*verbomania: [vurb-oh-mey-nee-uh] noun’

I think this layout makes the book a lot more accessible for younger readers and easier to read as the text does not look visually overwhelming.

As well as football, Booked also touched on issues such as the breakdown of Nick’s parents’ marriage, his friendship with his best friend who played for a rival team, bullying and girls. All these definitely gave the book a more well-rounded plot and would therefore appeal to a wider audience and not just those who would read for the football aspect.

I’m trying not to discover the shortlist which was announced the other week, but if I was able to choose; Booked would definitely make my shortlist.

Kwame Alexander has also written a similar novel, based on basketball playing twins Josh and Jordan called The Crossover; and this is another book I will most definitely be reading.