Like Vanessa Juvenile Fiction / Social Themes - Self-Esteem & Self-Reliance Critical reception for The Crossover

Critical reception for The Crossover has been positive and the book has received praise from the Washington Post and New York Times

My disease is as rare as it is famous

And now that her parents are divorced

Draper presents “storytelling at its finest” (School Library Journal

Association of Children's Booksellers Best Book

Like Vanessa Juvenile Fiction / Social Themes - Self-Esteem & Self-Reliance Critical reception for The CrossoverMiddle graders will laugh and cry with thirteen year old Vanessa Martin as she tries to be like Vanessa Williams, the first black Miss America. In this semi autobiographical debut novel set in 1983, Vanessa Martin's real life reality of living with family in public housing in Newark, New Jersey is a far cry from the glamorous Miss America stage. She struggles with a mother she barely remembers, a grandfather dealing with addiction and her own battle