Moves Make the Man

Moves were all I cared about last summer. I got them down, like a little definition of Jerome. Reverse spin, triple pump, reverse dribble, stutter step with twist to the left, stutter into jumper, blind pass. These are me. The moves make the man. The moves make me.

Jerome Foxworthy can indeed juke and jive with the best of them. But basketball is not the only light in his life. He is a full partner with older brothers Maurice and Henri in a fatherless home centered on their remarkable Momma, and he's an ace student in accelerated classes. Nothing really seems to faze "the Jayfox"—not even he has to cross town as the first and only black student to integrate the biggest white school in Wilmington, North Carolina.

But Jerome is caught off-guard by the mysterious Bix Rivers, the sharpest white athlete Jerome has ever seen. He is fascinated by this boy so filled with strange wit and complicated pain. What has happened to Bix? Why does he flip out at the slightest suspicion that someone is faking, even in jest? Can he be brought back down to earth by hoops lessons under Professor Jerome, late at night on a windy court in the woods?

So far, there has been no task the Jayfox could not do with smarts and style. Bix is quick to pick up hoops but draws the line at learning moves. To Jerome, moves mean self-expression and survival. To Bix, they mean falsehood. Ever since his mother had a breakdown and was put into a mental hospital, Bix swears he will have no lies in his life—until he pulls the biggest move of all.

With Jerome's witty, generous narrative of this extraordinary fellowship, Bruce Brooks's The Moves Make the Man marks the debut of a brilliant new voice in young-adult fiction.

—from the dust jacket

This novel "has a basketball theme and plenty of action, but sport is merely the vehicle for delivering a serious story of friendship and madness" (School Library Journal) between two youths—one black and one white—in trouble.

Newbery Honor Book, ALA Notable Children's Book, ALA Best Book for Young Adults, Boston Globe/Horn Book Award for Fiction.