Colby's blog

    I recently finished reading Hoops by Walter Dean Meyers.  It is about a 17 year old African American boy named Lonnie Jackson.  Lonnie lives in a Harlem ghetto in New York and he dreams of being a professional basketball player.  However, he lives a hard life and does not have the family support he needs to be able to do this.

     While reading this I immediately made a text to text connection to the book and movie Blindside.  In this movie, Michael is also an African American teenager who lives in poverty.  In fact, he is homeless at the beginning of the movie.  Lonnie reminds me of Michael because they have a lot in common.

     In Hoops, Lonnie's basketball coach Cal becomes like a father figure to him.  He isn't the best role model but he does help Lonnie work harder to reach his dream.  In Blindside, Michael is lucky enough to have a rich white family take interest in him and they even end up adopting him.  Because of them, he learns to play football and goes on to play football in college and the NFL.  Michael and Lonnie are alike in many ways, but Michael is able to be more successful because he has such a great family to help and support him.