Ten authors create an entire day of full court, pick-up games at the Cage in Greenwich Village, New York City, through this collection of basketball stories. Some characters are out to make some cash—betting on winning—others are there to impress and challenge each other, and a few are there just to watch, hoping to get noticed. The Cage has a reputation for being the place to show your skills, and this particular Saturday it’s full of action. A different author wrote each story, in order, requiring him or her to work with characters someone else introduced, sometimes moving them to secondary rolls and introducing new ones, and often presenting intriguing new perspectives on insights into individuals. Charles R. Smith Jr.’s photographs and poems, combined with compelling characters and a strong sense of setting, allow even someone without knowledge of basketball to get wrapped up in the Cage scene. (Age 13 and older)

Pass! Shoot! Swish! An all-star team of YA authors scores spectacularly with an action-packed anthology about street basketball.

It’s one steamy July day at the West 4th Street Court in NYC, otherwise known as The Cage. Hotshot ESPN is wooing the scouts, Boo is struggling to guard the weird new guy named Waco, a Spike Lee wannabe has video rolling, and virgin Irene is sizing up six-foot-eightand-a-half-inch Chester. Nine of YA literature’s top writers, including Walter Dean Myers, Rita Williams-Garcia, Adam Rapp, Joseph Bruchac, and Sharon Flake reveal how it all goes down in a searing collection of short stories, in which each one picks up where the previous one ends. Characters weave in and out of narratives, perspectives change, and emotions play out for a fluid and fast-paced ode to the game. Crackling with humor, grit, and streetball philosophy, and featuring poems and photographs by Charles R. Smith Jr., this anthology is a slam dunk.