He Said, She Said by Kwame Alexander

Alexander, K. (2013). He said, she said. New York, NY: Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins.

 I have been a big fan of Kwame Alexander since I read Crossover in my Children's literature class in 2016. I have quite a few of his works, and He Said, She Said was a book that I have had since I met him at an ALAN workshop. I have not had the time to read it, and since I was tasked with picking out one of his books, I wanted to do some research before making a decision. It turns out that He Said, She Said was the first YA novel that Kwame had written, as most of his previous works were picture books, poetry anthologies, and professional development books for teachers. Kwame has become very well known for his poetic style works like The Crossover, Rebound, and Booked. I was surprised when I started reading this book to find that it was written in a more traditional narrative style, as all I have ever known him for was the poetry.  I was really excited to read this book and see where it went with such a telling title as He said, She said. 

 He Said, She Said is written from two perspectives- Omar Smalls, and Claudia Clarke. Omar Smalls is the local town hero of the football field- leading his high school to championships against their rivals Bayside High. He is the King, T-Diddy, and player. Claudia is Miss know-it-all. She is Harvard Bound and could not care less about anything that happens outside of her studying, newspaper, and dance team. This book begins with the She's All That formula- boy makes a bet with his friends to get with the one girl who has absolutely no interest in him. Omar sees Claudia as a challenge, a prize to be won, but when she constantly blows him off and does not fall for his typical moves he has to change course. Claudia is very civic minded as she discovers at the beginning of the novel that the arts funding has been cut by the governor and that the school is cutting the marching band, dance team, art, drama, and cut the library down to part time only being open on Mondays and Fridays. Omar trying to impress her, ends up starting a movement to bring awareness to the school and community of this issue. #TheSilentTreatment begins. Every day the students are silent at the beginning of the day (beginning with 10 minutes and adding 5 minutes every day until their demands are met). This movement begins to accomplish a few things, the band is reinstated, as well as drama, dance, and art, and he really begins to impress Claudia. As the story moves along they begin falling in love, it seemed almost like a love story ending except there was still 75 or so pages left to go. Things begin to go downhill for everyone, Omar and Claudia are getting threats from administration to stop the protest, and they begin to lay off teachers to make up for having to reinstate the arts departments. Then when everything is seemingly going well- Kym, Omars ex-girlfriend, posts a sex tape of him saying that he cheated on Claudia and that he had taken advantage of her. Everything in the relationship seems to fall apart, Claudia blames herself for falling for the guy that she said she would never fall for, and Omar can't move on from his love of Claudia. In the end, the story is not fully resolved but leaves the reader feeling like they know how it will end for the two love birds despite all of their trials. 

 I really liked how this story was his first for a teen audience and I would also say has more mature content than most of his other works- not including Solo or Swing as I have not gotten to read those yet. I really liked to see his incorporation of various points of view and using facebook as a tool to show how the relationships develop and the dissemination of information in the time of technology. The year this book is set was around when I was in high school, and so it was very easy to see how the trouble comes about and also how a movement could come forth so quickly. I was in suspense nearly the entire time, because the title gave hints to something bad or tragic happening. The love story aspect was not something that I expected from this author or from the title, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I do not feel that it is as good as some of his other books that I have read, but there is something to say about the success of it being his first. The one that paves the way for all the others to come after. 

 Other books you may like if you enjoyed He Said, She Said: 

  • The Crossover by Kwame Alexander 
  • Rebound by Kwame Alexander 
  • Booked by Kwame Alexander 
  • The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler (This one is kind of a random one that I love and this book reminded me of it because of the love story, dual perspective, and use of technology)

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