Summary: A trio of high school students make their way through growing up, romance, jazz, and racism.
As I have been reading the Harry Potter books to my kids, I have been reminded that one of the things I do not like about young adult literature is the poor decision-making of real young adults. It is not that only teens make poor decisions, but that part of being a teen is that the consequences of our decisions are opaque to us. What seems like a good idea often isn’t. Still, with less experience of the world, and less capacity for communication and emotion processing, there is also less understanding of how our decisions impact others.
Swing (not a follow-up to Solo as I thought it was) is about three teens. It is primarily told through the voice of Noah, the only child of a couple who also manages a hotel. Noah’s best friend is Walt, who wants to be called Swing. Swing is both obsessed with baseball and jazz. He is not very good at baseball, but he works hard and keeps practicing, trying to get onto the team as a junior. The third member of the trio is Sam, and Noah has been in love with her since the third grade but cannot tell her. Much of the book is about Noah’s attempt to find a way to talk to Sam about his affection for her. Meanwhile, she is dating Cruz, the star baseball player at their high school, who is trying to pressure Sam into sex.
There is an undercurrent of jazz throughout the book, which is accented by this being a novel in poetry. This is the first poetic novel that I have read first in print. Solo and Brown Girl Dreaming I listened to in audio before going back to the print. I have not listened to the audiobook version of Swing, but this feels to me, other than missing the musical aspects of the book, like a book that should probably be read more than heard. Visually, there is a need to see the print for how the book handles conversations. I am sure there are different voices in audio, but in print, there are italics and the arrangement of print to show who is speaking. The poetic form lends itself to a spare storytelling style that also fits well with the book.
Much of the book is a classic young adult story. Teens try to understand themselves and those around them; there are attempts to communicate love and other things, planning for a party when parents are out of town. I am not going to give anything away, but there are a lot of complaints about the ending because the story takes a turn out of the light romance mode that it has been in through most of the book, to tell a different story. I have to agree that while there are hints all along about the story’s direction, I wanted more time with the changing storyline. The book ends without as much resolution as I would like. But I do not think that the story was wrong to have made that change. The change makes sense in the context of the book and the broader world it is speaking to. And I think it also is true to Alexander’s history as an author and storyteller.
Swing by Kwame Alexander, with Mary Rand Hess Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook