The PW review came out. You can read the full text of it on Amazon. The verdict:
For anyone who thinks of high school debate and envisions nerdy teens, the story of the Kansas City Central debate squad will be eye-opening... Lively and engrossing.
Joe - the email address on your blog profile doesn't work, and I wanted to invite you to promote your book at a Rotary meeting. Please email me at dan@gonemild.com.
I'm a writer and a writing professor. My first book, Cross-X: A Turbulent, Triumphant Season with an Inner-City Debate Squad, was named one of the best books of 2006 by Publishers Weekly, The Chicago Tribune and Amazon.com. I live in an old house in the Deep South with my wife, two dogs and four cats. I collect wonderful records.
A Chicago TribuneBest Book of the Year
A Publisher's WeeklyBest Book of the Year
One of Kansas City Star's 100 Noteworthy Books of the Year
Winner of the William Rockhill Nelson Award for Nonfiction
Winner of the Harry Chapin Media Award
. . .
Forget the nerdy reputation that debate has. Instead think of a scenario as exciting as a sports game with high stakes like triumphing over racism. bad politics and abject poverty... An important, thoughtful and provocative look at race and class in America.
- The Boston Globe
Joe Miller's enthusiasm is infectious and the plot creates the suspense of a good courtroom thriller.
- Entertainment Weekly
The minute I finished Joe Miller's Cross-X, I held the book out in front of me -- amazed, rapturous, and hopeful... Miller's mesmerizing, vivid accounts of the debates will leave you crouched in your seat, holding your breath... An incredibly powerful, daringly hopeful book.
- Minneapolis Star-Tribune
Irresistible... Miller begins breezily but is soon deeply invested in the Central squad's mission to not only master the debate game on its own terms but revolutionize it with flashes of poetry and hip-hop wordplay... If all these kids could run things, Miller implies, imagine what could get done.
5 comments:
The book sounds just fantastic. I look forward to reading it.
Did you ever shoot any video of the debate squad, or consider asking them to participate in a documentary?
lively and engrossing is good.
this is fun to be vicarious about.
see, with my language skills, it's the closest i can get. : )
For a while I thought about doing it all as a documentary before I realized it would be better to write, since that's what I do for a living.
And Tracy, you've got mad skills.
It sounds like you made a sensible decision!
Joe - the email address on your blog profile doesn't work, and I wanted to invite you to promote your book at a Rotary meeting. Please email me at dan@gonemild.com.
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