Newbery-winning poet visits Groton students
Groton — Sixth-grade teacher Lola Colette had watched Kwame Alexander’s TED Talk “The Power of Yes,” and so when she asked the Newbery Medal-winning poet to come to West Side Middle School, she knew he wouldn’t say no.
And so following the last stop of a monthlong bus tour that took him to 17 states, Alexander hopped on a red-eye flight from California to New Jersey and drove to Groton for an assembly and book-signing for the school’s 452 students.
Students cheered as he entered the gymnasium on Thursday afternoon. He walked down the aisle, stopping to take selfies. He threw a T-shirt into the crowd.
It was a reception worthy of a professional athlete, fitting for someone coming to talk about two books about basketball.
West Side selected “The Crossover” — a novel Alexander wrote entirely in verse about the relationship between two brothers, and their relationship with basketball — for its One School, One Book initiative.
The program also involved a basketball tournament, a door-decorating contest and a poetry contest, Principal Jeff Kotecki said. Alexander gave the winners of the tournament signed basketballs during his visit.
The author gave a high-energy talk, often holding his microphone out to the audience for students to collectively shout the last word of a rhyming verse.
His message was: “No’s” are a part of life, but once the no’s get exhausted and leave the party, all that’s left is a “yes” — and one yes is all you need.
He knows this firsthand: After writing 14 books of poetry, he wrote “The Crossover” and got rejected by 22 publishers. He was told girls don’t read books about sports and boys don’t read poems.
So Alexander planned to publish the book himself but got a positive response from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. In 2015 it won the Newbery Medal, considered the highest honor in children’s literature.
Last month, Alexander released “Rebound,” the prequel to “The Crossover.” The books are now ranked 4 and 7 in the Children’s Middle Grade Hardcover category of The New York Times’ best-seller list.
NPR’s Morning Edition is asking listeners to submit a couplet about teamwork by May 11, and Alexander will transform them into one poem.