We’ll begin our next novel, The Crossover, a novel written in verse:  a storyline told in poetic language.  As the title suggests, the characters and the plot are built around the game of basketball, but the author, Kwame Alexander, simply uses the game as a backdrop to examine challenges in life. We will be reading portions of the novel to capture the depth that rhythm, some rhyme, specific word choice, and line breaks bring to reading.  The style of writing causes readers to look for symbolism and to interact with the text.