Slam Dunk Book

The Book I'm reviewing is Called Slam Dunk which is a fast paced sports book written by Matthew Christopher. Slam Dunk is based around the protagonist Julien and the supporting characters Julien's best friends Barry,Grady and his Coach. The book is set in Julien's 6th year of primary school with his basketball team the Tornadoes, it is mainly set in the Basketball Courts but is also set in Julians school.


Slam dunk is based around the protagonist and his journey throughout the book, Julien is a talented basketball player who was the teams star centre and led his team along with Barry and Grady to last Seasons Victory, But as Julien Shows up for his first Team practice to his astonishment he realises he is the only other star player left as his friends have sustained injuries, Instead Julien finds himself surrounded by new comers and bench players from last year, Julien struggles to build a relationship with them all and starts to argue with some of the players. I can relate to this as i have once had team where I was just constantly arguing with them so i know what it feels like.



Slam Dunk has important themes that can relate to everyone, for example determination, determination is what drives this book, without determination Julien would have just quit, another big theme in this book is friendship, the friendship between these three boys is phenomenal, Julien even visited Barry in the hospital to ask for advice on his situation.
My favourite character is Barry as he is competitive and athletic yet sweet and considerate, he helps Julian and gives him advice on what do, Barry has a massive impact on Julien and the decisions he makes.


My favourite part of the book was when Julien played in a Basketball tournament against other really good teams such as the Falcons, what i liked about this Scene is the Majority Julien showed through the tournament as the opposition team were smashing his team at half time, he could of just gave up and quit, but Julien showed the resilience to keep on going to keep on pushing and he took the game to a draw, with extra time, Julien showed a great amount of majority and courage, to go from a whiney little child at the beginning of the season till now showing great leadership and persistence it shows how much he grew throughout the book, Julien also started relationships with the other players as Brad quotes " We'll get 'em next time" as they walk away.



Although there are some things i like about the book there are some things i dont like, for example i dont like how the Author focused most of his attention to the teams trainings, The Author should've been for creative and could've wrote more about the games, the book also mainly focused on Julien when i think it should've showed the growth of the relationships between the players and how they grew as a team, it was difficult to care or relate to these other characters as they were hardly mentioned. I also think the author could've been more clever with the ending as the book ended on a loss when i think it should've ended on a win so it doesn't feel like all their hard work was for nothing. Overall i thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and advice to 8-17 year old boys or girls who enjoy playing basketball or who are competitive, i rate this book a 4/5.




Luca Levy
590 Words