Myers, Walter Dean. Slam! Scholastic, 1996. ISBN 0-590-48667-5. $15.95. 266 pp. A 9-12 FI Reviewed by Keith R Westover Greg “Slam” Harris is a talented basketball player. This is the story of the first few months at his new high school. He has just transferred from Carver, a predominantly “black” school, to Latimer, a “magnet” school, in order to take advantage of their arts programs. Still, basketball is his main thing. The question, however, is not only how Slam will succeed on the basketball court, but how he will succeed in school, as well as in life. Told in the first person, this is a very believable story. Slam speaks as a seventeen-year- old black boy in New York City would speak. He acts very much as a teenager with a chip on his shoulder would act. The result is a genuine slice-of-life impression. The only apparent weakness in the plot is that no history or reason is presented to explain how or why Slam has arrived at this point in his life with the attitudes he displays. Overall, it is an engrossing read. Slam! has been awarded the 1997 Coretta Scott King Award.
