Slam! - Entry 1

                                                  Summary (Ch. 1-7)

    

               

           The novel Slam!, follows a high school student named Greg who tries to deal with multiple problems in his life.Problems which involve school, his family,and girls end up messing with his dream of making it to the NBA. Greg, who is also known as "Slam" (named Slam for his great dunking ability) is a fantastic basketball player and he knows it.He recently transferred to a new school where he is trying to fit in and catch up with everyone in schoolwork.Greg's poor grades are interfering with his basketball life and that gets his family involved. His family has problems of their own as Greg's grandmother has become seriously ill and has to stay in the hospital.Greg and his brother Derek visit their grandmother everyday to see how she is doing.Struggling with his family and school Greg looks to basketball to free himself from all the problems. 

            Greg is confident that he could make his new school basketball team but unfortunately his school is on a streak of five straight losing seasons.At the tryouts his arrogance leads into him playing 1on1 basketball against his coach.Greg ends up completely humiliating the coach and shows his teammates that he is the best player in the school.At his old school, Carver, Greg and his best friend, Ice, were the two main players on there basketball team. Greg and Ice knew each other very well and would call each other brothers.Greg ends up learning from his crush Mtisha that Ice could be into drug dealing and this worries both Mtisha and Greg as they don't want anything bad to happen to Ice.The first game of the season and Greg learns that he won't be starting.His team ends up trailing at half time but then turn it around as Greg enters the game. Greg's popularity begins to grow as he shines on the basketball court.He carries his team to victory and ends up celebrating after the game with Ice and it seems to be more obvious that Ice is indeed dealing drugs as suddenly he is driving a nice car. Greg's school and basketball life start to improve but his sick grandmother and girl problems begin to worsen. 

                                            Analytical Paragraph

     This novel is written from the prospective of the protagonist Greg Harris. He is a 6  foot 4, talented basketball player with the dream of making it to the NBA. Greg's dream is at stake as he struggles with school while his family is dealing with a ill grandmother.Within his family he takes care of his brother and mother while having to deal with his drunken father.Despite all these problems, he doesn't let them interfere with his basketball play as he ends up being a star player on his new schools basketball team. When it comes to basketball he may be overconfident and hot headed but he is very talented . Off the court he is very friendly and loves to flirt with girls as it is his second hobby.

                                    Interactive Response             

            So far this novel seems like a cliche sports fiction novel with a struggling talented athlete who struggles with life.It may be cliche but it is still very interesting to me. Although the conflict within the story  has not really come forth the plot has been really good.Greg seems like a realistic character dealing with common real life problems.This story as a whole has been very realistic as Walter Dean Myers does a good job of giving a description of the setting and the characters which pop up.So far the book has been very interesting and makes me want to continue to read about Greg trying to juggle his love of basketball with all the struggles he has to go through.