Susan Kuklin

Sheryl Swoopes plays basketball. She shoots, jumps, dribbles, catches and scores. "The fundamentals are a very important part of the game," she says. "It shows my stengths and my weaknesses. I'm never satisfied with just winning. I can always improve something. I can become a better player -- I can become a better person. This takes practice."

To make this book, I photographed Sheryl Swoopes as she worked her game. She was good! Oh my, she was good. Sheryl played hard and fast as she practiced every position, both offense and defense. At times it seemed as if she was the entire team. And so we tried to recreate her energy through photographs. To do this, Sheryl changed clothing five times and played every position for my camera. After the photography sessions, I scanned all the photographs into my computer and designed multiple Sheryls racing around the pages of the book.

This shoot was fun-hard work. We were exhausted and energized at the same time. Although lots of material needed to be covered, we took time-outs between sequences. During a break, Jordan, Sheryl's son, hung out with his mom.

It was exciting to learn a new way to show movement with still photography. But the best part about making this book was, I got to shoot hoops with Swoopes.

Kirkus called Hoops "a celebration of sheer physicality in motion. Kuklin reprises her technique, seen before in DANCE (1998) of isolating her subject -- here Sheryl Swoopes of the WNBA -- against a white background. There is nothing stale about this offering, though. Swoopes appears, caught in action, all over the page, demonstrating basketball basics ('jump...catch...step...shoot') as well as fancier maneuvers, such as when she 'dribbledribbledribbles' the ball between her legs, in a series of three ever-larger photographs on one page. The kinetic sans-serif typeface works perfectly with the overall design, leaping around the page in varying sizes and colors, in the case of the different basketball moves. Each turn of the page offers something different, as when a double-paged spread demands to be turned 90 degrees to see the vertical Swoopes against an enormous, yellow, horizontal 'JUMP!' ...The text itself is delivered in rapid-fire bursts, emulating the speed of the game: 'Sheryl Swoopes plays basketball/down on the ground/up in the AIR/in your FACE/everywhere!' The African-American Swoopes herself is a beautiful, athletic, and feminine subject, of whom it is easy to see that 'her game is believing/in the team--/and in herself.' The whole arresting package is absolutely a three-pointer."

Bookslist review: Gr. 1-3, younger for reading aloud. Sheryl Swoopes, a member of the Houston Comets, the 2000 WNBA champions and the league's most valuable player, takes center court in this simple, vigorous introduction to basketball. Set against expanses of white, different cutout photos of the vibrantly outfitted Swoopes, ball in hand, give the effect of a player in motion. Brightly colored boxes feature words like catch, shoot, and dribbledribbledribble. Rudimentary instructions and brief insights make up the rest of the text: 'her game is passing.' In this exhilarating offering, veteran photographer-author Kuklin captures the energy and enthusiasm of women's basketball in general and of Swoopes in particular."


This books is the proud winner of the Parent's Guide 2001 Children's Media Award.