My Brother's Reading Journey (OTSOG)

My Brother's Reading Journey (OTSOG)
Follow up to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Post: click here

With school already under way for MC Zoo's senior year and E-Man's first month of third grade, the summer left a lot to reflect on.  One of this summer's major accomplishments was my brother's completion of his first 250+ page book.  Instead of checking out the text from the library we decided to purchase one of his choice so that he could take his time to read it.  Searching through Amazon, my brother, who's been a Laker fan for as long as he could talk, decided on a text by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar & Raymond Obstfeld, with forward by Quincy Jones titled On the Shoulders of Giants, My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance.  I wasn't sure how my brother would take to reading about history but immediately he got into it and appreciated that it was about more than just sports.  It told stories of not only Kareem's experiences, but many names throughout history such as Langston Hughes, Louis Armstrong, Marcus Garvey, Duke Ellington, Zora Neale Hurston, Alain Locke and details about many others from the Harlem Renaissance that impacted sports or vice versa.  The writing style and the references to specific teams including the Harlem Rens and the Original Celtics left a lasting memory on my youngest brother, both through the writing and the photographs included in the book.  The text inspired a respect for Kareem that went beyond just sports and the unstoppable hook shot my brother's been working all summer trying to perfect.  It was a text that traveled with my brother when he tagged along with our pops (aka King Kong) and it also accompanied him on his first trip out of town to support the varsity Andress Eagles basketball squad and their first ever battle towards the Texas regional title.  On the bus, while the Eagles were on their way to making history, my brother was reading about history and continued doing so throughout the year all the way to the final page.  

We worked on a few laptop journal activities but weren't able to get a consistent reading + discussion schedule going (only brief updates from time to time).  To close out the book, we've decided to que the documentary of the same name, On the Shoulder's of Giants (see below) through a Netflix DVD selection.  It'll be a cool way for my brother to reflect on what he's learned as we get ready to archive his first official text.  While my brother has read a lot of books since middle school this is one of the most challenging books he's sought out to add to his own personal library collection.

Currently, he's reading a text titled The Hoops Whisperer: On the Court and Inside the Heads of Basketball's Best Players by Idan Ravin checked out from the El Paso Public Library Irving Schwartz branch.

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