Two boys, both with issues of their own, become friends over the game of basketball, but one of them may be too troubled to be saved by the other.
And intense and touching story that had me rooting for both boys. ( )

Wow! I can't believe it took me this long to read this one. Why did I put it off? Oh, right, basketball.

This was one on the Battle of the Books book list when I was in middle school, and I never read it because I have never been into sports. However, Bruce Books writes in a very compelling way that actually made me care at least as long as Jerome Foxworthy was sharing his story, probably because he himself was so interested, and the way he talked about it was much broader than just the basics of the game, it was also about how a person plays it and how that can tell you about the person.

At its heart, The Moves Make the Man is the story of Jerome Foxworthy's meeting, befriending, and trying his best to understand Bix, a young white boy with some very serious issues, but Jerome's first run-in with Bix doesn't reveal this, just spying him from afar while Bix plays baseball (a sport Jerome loathes) against his brother's team. The story, taking place in Wilmington, North Carolina in 1961, then pushes Bix and Jerome together through a series of circumstances, starting with Jerome's transfer to a new school thanks to Desegregation.

In the beginning, it is hard to tell how everything happening to Jerome connects with his eventual friendship with Bix, this bit of information already having been revealed right at the start of the narrative, but it all eventually comes together in a very fascinating read of the complexity of humans and human relationships. Also, the more I read the more I found myself relating to both Jerome and Bix in certain ways, which is always a plus.

I'm amazed this isn't on more Must-Read lists, as it certainly just found a place on mine, especially for the age and grade-level it is meant for. So good. ( )

This book not only made me care about Jerome Foxworthy and Bix Rivers, it made me fall in love with basketball. The Jayfox, as narrator Jerome Foxworthy is called, first notices Braxton Rivers the Third as the fine shortstop at a summer baseball game in Wilmington, North Carolina. Later, when Jerome is the first to integrate Bix’s lily-white school, they encounter one another again in a home ec class where they bond in a protest against making mock apple pie.

Full review:
http://www.twentybyjenny.com/teenBooks/review/moves-make-man/ ( )

Powerful story about friendship and family and how each can make us heroically strong or frighteningly fragile. ( )