Josh is introduced as a happy nice kid and doesn’t really seem like a troublemaker but when a big conflict happens when JB gets a girlfriend he changes into a completely different person. Josh gets very angry at JB so in their basketball game Josh decides it’s a good idea to chuck the ball at JB’s face almost breaking his nose. As you can see the author was using this technique to show the conflict and emotion. He was showing conflict by Josh getting very mad at JB for having a girlfriend so he takes his anger out on him and the same goes for emotion.

“And fire a pass so hard, it levels him, the blood from his nose still shooting.” (Alexander 134).

All of the anger poured out of me like the blood pouring out of JB’s nose, my emotions took over I couldn’t take it anymore.

These quotes are showing that Kwame Alexander used this technique to show the main conflict in the story, and how the characters feel about it especially Josh. 

So like I  was saying the author does this to emphasise the conflict in the story and shows the emotions and what's going on.

“I finish my vocabulary homework and my brothers vocabulary homework, which I don’t mind.” (Alexander 54). In this quote this is an example of how Josh is a very good student and is not the typical teenager jock kid. There is usually the stereotype that jocks are just bad students and are bullies and ladies mans and stuff but Josh is the complete opposite he is a nice, good student, jock. On the other hand JB is a prime example of a jock… “Ever since Kim Bazemore kissed him…” (Alexander 23). JB and kim aren’t even dating she just kissed him, this is showing that he’s a ladies man and he is very cocky about how good he is at basketball.

“JB and the new girl are sipping sweet tea together.” (Alexander 69)

I walk home alone now with no one at my side and a lonely walk it is, I get home and an hour later JB gets home and says wow it was such a good time with “MST”. 

So in these pieces of evidence I’m showing you that the author uses two minor characters (MST and JB) to create conflict, like Josh getting upset and angry that he doesn’t have that relationship that he wants with his brother. As I said in the first paragraph Josh took his anger out and whipped the ball at JB’s face and almost broke his nose. After that their relationship got even worse.

“This is a game I cannot play. It has no ruled, no referees. You cannot win.” (Alexander 227). 

Winning this game can’t happen, but we will never forget this game, but we will be able to live with it also and always miss that game and wish we could go back and win. 

These two quotes are symbolising that you can’t bring someone back to life after they die. The game they are talking about is death, and how you can’t beat it, but the author is trying to show that you can get passed it and in life sometimes you have to deal with it but always remember you’ll get passed it. 

So I think that the author used symbolism very well to show many positive motivating things. It doesn’t even need to be death it could just be a big event that has happened in you life. 

“Moving and grooving, POPping and ROCKING, Bumping, LOCKING, THUMPING, CRUNKing, crissCROSSING, FLOSSING, flipping, dipping, SLIPPING, SWOOP, Fierce finger roll, SWoooooooooooooosh.” 

I know I've used this one a lot, but I just really enjoy it because it really explains and defines of how good at basketball they are.

“One… It’s a bird, It’s a plane. No, it’s up up upppppppppppp. My shot is FLOWING, Flying, fLuTtErInG, OHHHHHHHH, the chains are JINGALING ringaling and SWINGALING Swish.” (Alexander 222).

This quote is using onomatopoeia again to really show how intense the game winning shot was and Kwame like brought it in slow motion and broadcasted it. With such detail she really described what happened and showed the big idea of that it was an amazing game winning shot.