Nate Torres was a teenager who always thought of himself as a quitter--until he discovered the world of street basketball.

From the New York Times bestselling author Kwame Alexander comes Rebound, the dynamic prequel to his Newbery Award–winning novel in verse, The Crossover. Before Josh and Jordan Bell were streaking up and down the court, their father was learning his own moves. Chuck Bell takes center stage as readers get a glimpse of his childhood and how he became the jazz music worshiping, basketball star his sons look up to. A novel in verse with all the impact and rhythm readers have come to expect from Kwame Alexander, Rebound goes back in time to visit the childhood of Chuck "Da Man" Bell during one pivotal summer when young Charlie is sent to stay with his grandparents where he discovers basketball and learns more about his family's past. This prequel to the Newbery Medal- and Coretta Scott King Award-winning The Crossover scores.

Returning home was never on my bingo card. Neither was the bad break up I’m leaving behind. Most unexpected of all: Joseph Chatham. Ten years younger than me and my brother-in-law’s younger brother. He’s off limits and unbelievably sexy. Joey is stunning, and cocky, and he makes me feel things I’ve never experienced. Things I’ll never admit to. Because we can never happen. But he has plans for me, naughty plans, and he’s determined to make them happen. He doesn’t care about my arguments against getting together or all the reasons it’s wrong. So when he proposes we just keep our relationship a secret, just between us, a rebound fling seems like exactly what I need. That is, until I realize it might not be a rebound at all, and in small towns…? Well, nothing stays a secret for long.

Let’s make the "next normal" a "better normal" If there ever was a time for our heroic school leadership to persevere, it’s now. Because now, well over one year since the pandemic stretched the resilience and reserves of our school systems, it’s time to "rebound." It’s time to leverage this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reboot teaching and learning as we know it so that we magnify the effective practices from the past while leveraging the so many recent lessons learned. This is where Doug Fisher, Nancy Frey, Dominique Smith, and John Hattie, coauthors of The Distance Learning Playbook series, are ideally equipped to serve as your collaborators. Inside Leading the Rebound: 20+ Must-Dos to Restart Teaching and Learning you’ll find immediate actions, mindsets, and approaches to take if we’re to reimagine and improve our schools and school systems. Step by step, you’ll discover explicit guidance on how to: 1. Take care of yourself 2. Take stock and find the path 3. Rebuild teacher agency 4. Rebuild collective teacher efficacy 5. Foreground social and emotional learning 6. Change the learning loss narrative 7. Guide teacher clarity 8. Ensure instructional excellence 9. Use assessments for a range of purposes 10. Design and implement interventions 11. Win back parent-teacher relationships 12. Establish restorative practices 13. Avoid stealing the conflict 14. Enhance teacher-student and student-student interactions 15. Develop early warning systems for attendance, behavior, and course completion 16. Confront cognitive challenges to learning 17. Ensure equitable and restorative grading 18. Enhance PLCs 19. Provide empathetic feedback 20. Host honest performance conversations 21. Maintain your social presence 22. Future-proof teachers and students What’s more Leading the Rebound is backed up with all kinds of resources--including VISIBLE LEARNING® research, sample planning tools, and other essential tips and strategies--to provide you with a start-to-finish roadmap for navigating this absolutely critical next leg in our journey toward a "better normal."

Basketball is depicted as a frenzied, sweat-soaked adrenaline fest with a championship to win amongst different schools.

Prejudice can be defined in more ways than one