We Are Family

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2021

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-4

Chapters 5-10

Chapters 11-16

Chapters 17-22

Chapters 23-28

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Chapters 17-22Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 17 Summary

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of illness and gender discrimination.

Tamika’s reunion with Austinberg is awkward. She speaks with Charlene Bailey, her former best friend, for the first time in months. She doesn’t feel like she can tell Charlene about her father’s Parkinson’s disease. She didn’t even want to contact the Austinberg coach to arrange the game: She had Principal Kim do it. Austinberg wins by 18 points, but Hoop Group competes hard, and Dex makes two free throws “granny-style.” Jayden stops by and watches. He wanted to play and help lead a comeback.

Chapter 18 Summary

Jayden practices cleaning the pizza place as fast as he can. While wiping up ranch dressing, Tamika, Anthony, Chris, and Dex enter, and Jayden tells them that his mother lost her job. Tamika is understanding, and Jayden is on the verge of tears. In the kitchen, Roddy advises Jayden not to let present problems nullify his future.

Roddy shares his life story. He had full scholarships to schools like UCLA and Duke University. While playing college basketball, he planned to study architecture. After making the NBA, he planned to use some of his money to build decent housing for people without affluence. However, his girlfriend became pregnant in high school, and Roddy didn’t want to leave her or his daughter, so he got a job at Top Burger. His grandfather offered to house his girlfriend and daughter, but Roddy, unlike his father, wanted to be there. He now realizes that he could have supported his family by pursuing his dream. Using the airplane safety guidelines about how a person must put their mask on first before helping others, Roddy tells Jayden that he can’t “save” anyone else if he’s “dying” too.

Chapter 19 Summary

The strong bond between Jayden and his mother makes Tamika think about her difficult relationship with her father. They were never close since Coach Beck was often away, coaching Kendrick King or other players. Coach Beck didn’t teach Tamika how to shoot: She learned by watching his videos on YouTube. Coach Beck doesn’t believe that basketball offers Tamika a practical future. Even if she makes the Women’s NBA (WNBA), she’ll likely earn $75,000. If she became a doctor or lawyer, she’d earn more. Her father’s lack of support motivates her to play in the WNBA and make the league lucrative.

In his den, Coach Beck has ESPN on mute. Tamika tells him that she’s leading Hoop Group, and her father becomes irate. He tells her that she has “no right,” and he orders her to disband Hoop Group. Tamika already entered Hoop Group into the Shoot, Dunk, and Spin Classic—a skills competition where the winning team receives a spot in the Fall Invitational.

Tamika asks her mother if her father will end up like the famous American boxer and activist Muhammad Ali, who had Parkinson’s disease. Tamika’s mother gives Tamika a hug. She tells her that her father is sick and isn’t himself. She advises Tamika not to give in and to show her father that she can successfully lead Hoop Group.

Chapter 20 Summary

In his kitchen, Jayden completes his creative writing assignment by writing about the importance of basketball. He says that basketball has always been there for him and that he won’t abandon it. Grams, who was an English teacher for over 30 years, reads it and encourages him to pursue his basketball dreams. She tells him that God doesn’t make people’s lives easy and that everyone, including Kendrick King, must grapple with adversity. Grams claims that successful people like Kendrick know they’re going to triumph.

Roddy has a Slice booth at the Lakeside Fall Festival, where the Shoot, Dunk, and Spin Classic takes place. One of his workers is sick, so Roddy offers to pay Jayden double if he can hurry down to the festival and help. Though Jayden doesn’t want to serve pizza while people play in the skills challenge, he can’t turn down the money, so he agrees.

Chapter 21 Summary

The Lakeside Fall Festival draws a large crowd, with people eating funnel cakes and holding stuffed animals that they won at game booths. As for the Shoot, Dunk, and Spin Classic, it has five challenges. Each team must submit a different play for each challenge. Since Hoop Group still only has four players, Tamika concludes that if Hoop Group wins first place in the first four challenges, they can forfeit the final contest and still win.

Tamika is the Hoop Group member who participates in the three-point contest. She heats up after a slow start and earns first place. Chris excels in the layup contest, maneuvering around various obstacles. However, on his last layup, he hits a cone and misses the layup, plummeting him to third place. Anthony is in the fast-pass contest. He has one minute to hit the targets. Since the distant targets are worth more points, Anthony aims for them. He has the strength but lacks the accuracy, so he doesn’t finish first. Using the “granny-style,” Dex makes 17 consecutive free throws and finishes first in the free-throw competition.

Going into the last contest, Hoop Group is in second. To win, they need someone to compete in the final challenge. As Tamika worries about potentially losing, she sees Jayden approaching.

Chapter 22 Summary

Roddy realizes that Hoop Group needs Jayden, so he encourages Jayden to compete in the final vertical jump contest. An older judge doesn’t think that Jayden is eligible because he’s not registered for the Shoot, Dunk, and Spin Classic. A younger woman says that Jayden is eligible since he’s on Hoop Group’s team list. The younger woman is correct, and Tamika lets Jayden participate after he promises to stick around for the rest of the season.

Jayden wins his bracket, barely beating Charlene Bailey. Marcus Cheney, the tall center who plays for the Avon Lake Rebels, wins his bracket, so Jayden must face Marcus in the final round. The contest is close, but Jayden wins by .5 inches, so Hoop Group wins the Shoot, Dunk, and Spin Classic, earning a spot in the Fall Invitational Tournament.

Chapters 17-22 Analysis

In this section, the narrative continues to put obstacles in front of Hoop Group. The struggles generate tension and showcase the resilience of the young characters. Coach Beck’s antagonism increases. Unlike Tamika’s mother, he opposes Tamika’s efforts to maintain Hoop Group. He tells Tamika, “Shut it down now […] You can call your little team whatever you want, but you’ll never win the Classic, and you’ll never be the real Hoop Group” (212-13). His language is dismissive and designed to undermine Tamika’s confidence, but it has the opposite effect. Instead of internalizing his doubt, Tamika uses it as fuel, reinforcing her embodiment of Daily Persistence and Self-Control and her belief in Demonstrating Leadership and Fostering Community. Rather than needing her father’s validation, she carves her own path, proving that leadership is defined by action, not permission. Through her efforts, Hoop Group wins the Shoot, Dunk, and Spin Classic. This victory is symbolic, as it not only secures their spot in the Fall Invitational but also proves that Tamika’s leadership is legitimate, regardless of her father’s refusal to acknowledge it.

Jayden takes the theme of Sacrificing for Other People to the extreme, pausing his basketball hopes so that he can earn money for his family. Grams and his mother tell him that they don’t want him to risk his future, but their words don’t influence him. This decision demonstrates that Jayden, like Roddy before him, equates sacrifice with love. His willingness to give up his dreams mirrors Roddy’s past choice to stay behind and support his girlfriend and child rather than pursue basketball. Jayden believes that sacrificing his aspirations is the only way to show devotion to his family, but his story ultimately challenges this assumption. Roddy, too, tries to get Jayden to take a measured approach. About his daughter, Roddy says, “I didn’t consider that the best way to be there for her was to become the best version of myself” (201). Roddy’s history reveals that selfishness can masquerade as sacrificial conduct. His story recontextualizes the idea of selflessness, showing that true support comes from striving toward one’s fullest potential rather than abandoning it. Jayden’s arc parallels Roddy’s, but unlike Roddy, Jayden has the opportunity to course-correct before it’s too late. This realization forces Jayden to recognize that while his job at Slice provides short-term financial relief, his long-term potential as a basketball player could create far greater opportunities for his family. Roddy’s intervention underscores one of the novel’s key messages: True sacrifice should not mean surrendering ambition but instead balancing responsibility with personal growth.

James and Williams use imagery when describing the Classic, heightening the stakes of each competition and transforming the Classic from a simple skills contest into a gripping, moment-by-moment battle. The cinematic quality of the descriptions mimics the real-life excitement of watching a high-stakes basketball game, drawing the reader into the moment. The graphic representation adds suspense to the skills competitions because it turns each event into a mini narrative. By structuring the Classic as a sequence of individual challenges, the novel emphasizes that success is not determined by any single performance but by the cumulative effort of the team. Each event builds on the last, reinforcing the idea that resilience and perseverance are more important than immediate victories.

Tamika’s cold start suggests that she might lose the three-point challenge, and Chris’s ability to make his first layup conveys the sense that he’ll have no trouble completing his last layup. Yet Tamika finishes first, and Chris finishes last, so the vivid imagery traces their twists and turns. The tournament structure also mirrors Hoop Group’s journey as a whole—their progress is nonlinear and filled with setbacks and breakthroughs that ultimately define the team’s strength.

Dex’s free-throw technique links to the literary devices of allusion and humor. In Chapters 17 and 21, Dex shoots “granny-style,” which means that he shoots underhanded. The name and the act are funny, and the contrast between the unconventional technique and its surprising effectiveness adds levity to an otherwise high-pressure moment, while also challenging traditional notions of what success in basketball looks like. The technique, often associated with elderly players rather than competitive athletes, immediately contrasts with the usual high-intensity style of basketball, subverting expectations. Despite its unconventional appearance, the “granny-style” shot is statistically one of the most effective ways to make free throws. This contrast between perception and reality ties into the novel’s broader theme of finding success in unexpected ways. Dex’s ability to embrace an unorthodox method underscores that success comes in many forms and that sometimes, unconventional paths yield the best results.