MAY 2021 - AudioFile
The author’s memoir of growing up in a tough Philadelphia neighborhood and finding a haven in a nearby barn where he learns to play polo reads like a novel. Narrator Landon Woodson delivers the story perfectly, bringing out its range of emotions. The sport sticks with Rosser, who goes off to military school and continues to play polo. Eventually, it becomes his salvation. Woodson offers the right inflections at the right times for the author’s words—the emotional swings range from grief at the loss of a loved one to the pride Rosser feels in his accomplishments on the field. This unique story is enhanced by Woodson’s narration. M.B. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
★ 11/23/2020
Rosser debuts with the captivating story of how he came to be a champion polo player after his challenging childhood in West Philadelphia. Rosser details his mother’s battles with addiction, his brothers’ continuous fight to stay out of prison, and his best friend’s murder, which resulted in his own struggles with anxiety and PTSD. In his neighborhood, known as “The Bottom,” drug abuse and gun violence were prevalent, but he found solace in the Work to Ride stables, a local organization which provided children the opportunity to learn how to play polo. The sport, with its ethos of hard work and brotherhood, gave him a vision for how to embrace a brighter future. After earning a spot on the first all-Black interscholastic polo championship team and diligently working on his polo skills, he won a place on the Colorado State University collegiate team and later led them to a national title. Rosser’s prose is restrained but confident as he notes how fortunate he was to have polo in his life, and how he was able to defy expectations as a young Black boy on the polo field. This remarkable and inspiring story shines. (Feb.)Correction: An earlier version of this review misnamed the Work to Ride stables. It also contained an error in the timeline of the author's collegiate athletic career.
From the Publisher
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"A marvelous addition to the literature of inspirational sports stories. It's an occasionally heartbreaking but ultimately uplifting coming-of-age story about the bonds of brotherhood and the unique healing powers capable of being generated between humans and horses." —Booklist (Starred Review)
"This remarkable and inspiring story shines." —Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
"Vulnerability is exactly what gives Crossing the Line its strength; Rosser not holding anything back is the key quality that makes this first-time author’s words worth your time... if anybody should be considered the face of American polo, it’s Kareem Rosser." —InsideHook
"[A] poetically spun tale of championship...Rosser's aspirational tale, though full of sorrow and hardship, is one that readers will cheer." —Kirkus
“Of all the stories around Polo that I have experienced in my career, this is by far the most inspiring." —Nacho Figueras
"Crossing the Line is truly a special book. It will not just leave you with hope, but also ideas on how to make that hope transferable. Kareem's remarkable story is one that should be read and understood by all.” —Wes Moore, Rhodes Scholar, Former White House Fellow, and New York Times bestselling author of The Other Wes Moore
Library Journal
★ 03/01/2021
The chance discovery of Work to Ride stables in a local park changed the life of eight-year-old Rosser (b. 1993), who thought he would never be able to escape hardship and poverty. The stables introduced Rosser to the elite sport of polo, and riding brought escape from a difficult childhood in West Philadelphia. This most improbable of refuges led him out of the city and ultimately to groundbreaking international success on the polo field, where he became part of the first all-Black national interscholastic polo championship team. Rosser's writing debut describes his journey to success without sparing the harsh realities of a rough childhood, his sometimes difficult relationship with his brothers, and learning to navigate and appreciate barn rules. In finding his way, Rosser won scholarships and completed his college education, and he now works as a financial analyst. Recognizing that hope can come from the most unexpected places, the author also encourages a rethinking of expectations and privilege. Polo may have been the gateway to his present life, but Rosser's heart and determination are the real story. VERDICT This unusual memoir deserves wide readership and discussion. A highly recommended purchase for all public libraries and sports collections.—Janet Davis, Darien P.L., CT
MAY 2021 - AudioFile
The author’s memoir of growing up in a tough Philadelphia neighborhood and finding a haven in a nearby barn where he learns to play polo reads like a novel. Narrator Landon Woodson delivers the story perfectly, bringing out its range of emotions. The sport sticks with Rosser, who goes off to military school and continues to play polo. Eventually, it becomes his salvation. Woodson offers the right inflections at the right times for the author’s words—the emotional swings range from grief at the loss of a loved one to the pride Rosser feels in his accomplishments on the field. This unique story is enhanced by Woodson’s narration. M.B. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2020-11-26
From a Philadelphia neighborhood beset by poverty and violence to the head of the first all-Black interscholastic polo championship team.
Rosser was one of a cohort of young men who might have been steered into a gang given other circumstances. Instead, he and his brothers took a wrong turn on a back road and found themselves at a riding stable whose cash-strapped owner took them under her wing and taught them about horses—and, in time, the game of polo, ordinarily the province of the rich, condescending White boys they played. In time, after some humiliating defeats, the preteens pulled themselves together, and Rosser so distinguished himself that he was given a full scholarship to a military academy. The rigid discipline there stood in sharp contrast to a home life bounded by violence and addiction. “She’d bring strangers and friends into the house at night,” he writes of his mother, “and we’d wake up to the thick skunky smell of last night’s weed in the air, empty crack vials strewn on the kitchen table, tipped over beer bottles dripping their last dregs onto the floor.” Both polo and school pulled him out of that life, he writes, even as members of his own family and close friends were murdered, imprisoned, and lost in an indifferent system. Affectingly, the author writes that the sight of an African American on a horse was not unknown even in “The Bottom,” where he lived, with “a history of horses and horsemanship…that goes back a century or more.” What was unusual was “a bunch of scrawny-ass Black kids galloping some second-hand horses around a soccer field, mallets in hand,” a pleasing vision that one hopes to see more often, just as one celebrates Rosser’s poetically spun tale of championship: “We never missed a step. We were young kings. We were brothers.”
Rosser’s aspirational tale, though full of sorrow and hardship, is one that readers will cheer.
