Kwame Alexander
Author of The Crossover
About the Author
Kwame Alexander is a poet, children's book author, playwright, producer, speaker, and performer. His books include And Then You Know: New and Selected Poems, Crush: Love Poems, Family Pictures: Poems and Photographs Celebrating Our Loved Ones, and Acoustic Rooster and His Barnyard Band. He won the show more 2015 John Newbery Medal for his bestselling novel The Crossover. Since 2006, his Book-in-a-Day writing and publishing program has created more than 2500 student authors in 50 schools across the U.S., and in Canada and the Caribbean. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Author Kwame Alexander at the 2019 Texas Book Festival in Austin, Texas, United States. By Larry D. Moore, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=83568330
Series
Works by Kwame Alexander
Animal Ark: Celebrating our Wild World in Poetry and Pictures (National Geographic Kids) (2017) 179 copies
Why Fathers Cry at Night: A Memoir in Love Poems, Recipes, Letters, and Remembrances (2023) 56 copies
The Write Thing: Kwame Alexander Engages Students in Writing Workshop (And You Can Too!) (Professional Resources) (2018) 14 copies
The Crossover Series 3 Books Collection Set by Kwame Alexander (The Crossover, Booked & Rebound) (2020) 4 copies
Associated Works
Our Story Begins: Your Favorite Authors and Illustrators Share Fun, Inspiring, and Occasionally Ridiculous Things They… (2017) — Contributor — 89 copies
Grand Fathers: Reminiscences, Poems, Recipes, and Photos of the Keepers of Our Traditions (1999) — Contributor — 26 copies
Poemhood: Our Black Revival: History, Folklore & the Black Experience: A Young Adult Poetry Anthology (2024) — Contributor — 20 copies
Love & Profanity: A Collection of True, Tortured, Wild, Hilarious, Concise, and Intense Tales of Teenage Life (2015) — Contributor — 19 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Other names
- ALEXANDER, Kwame
- Birthdate
- 1968-08-21
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Manhattan, New York, USA
- Places of residence
- Washington, D.C., USA
- Awards and honors
- Street Literature Book Award (Author of the Year, 2016)
- Agent
- Arielle Eckstut (Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary)
Members
Reviews
Swing by Kwame Alexander
WOW
A powerful and gutwrenching story that brings us the true courage and humanity of the enslaved people. A tale of how people betray themselves as they betray their own. A very powerful story that shows how we are all one at heart yet have never learned how to embrace each other to achieve our full strength and understanding.
Trigger warnings: Death and murder of a brother and another person by suicide in a body of water, near-death experiences, shipwreck, blood, grief and loss depiction, caning, physical assault and injury, slavery, colonisation
Score: Nine out of ten.
The Door of No Return by Kwame Alexander circled my recommendations for months until the library finally purchased it and I soon picked it up. I glanced at the blurb, making it seem heavy, yet intriguing, and the ratings were high. I don't see poetry novels every day, and it was another hit when I closed the final page.
It starts with Kofi Offin living in the Asante Kingdom in 1860. Well that was a breath of fresh air. I wanted to read a piece of historical fiction that isn't white history or entirely set in a Western country for once. The opening pages look typical until I read 150 pages, and that's when the central storyline darkens the tone from there. It was heavy enough when Kofi's teacher forced him to speak English and not his first language, Twi, but now his future looks uncertain after he accidentally killed his opponent from the other part of the kingdom.
But wait! It gets worse. Kofi's life worsens when he is captured and is now a slave. It's a simplistic plot that's easy to follow, but it's a fascinating look into what slavery was like through Kofi's POV. The pacing is slow, almost lasting 400 pages, but it didn't feel tedious or repetitive as there was always something happening. The Door of No Return isn't a coming of age story like a quote on the front cover told me, it's more like a piece of historical fiction in verse. Alexander executed the writing style well, meeting my expectations, since he wrote compositions I enjoyed before this one. The final pages were heartbreaking as Kofi's fate is up in the air. Other than that one miss I still regard him as an excellent writer. The Door of No Return is the first instalment of a planned trilogy, which explains the abrupt conclusion, so I'm excited to see what happens next.
This book is a collection of poetry, talking about things from basketball to dancing and all the in-between. I think that this book could be good for elementary students because it could help teach them about poetry, if you have an assignment where poetry is used.
Lists
Awards
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 41
- Also by
- 11
- Members
- 9,674
- Popularity
- #2,468
- Rating
- 4.3
- Reviews
- 449
- ISBNs
- 281
- Languages
- 8
- Favorited
- 5
