Lexile = 1000
Boys in the Boat in our library is actually the "young readers edition". I have read both it and the "old readers edition".... (no, they don't call it that!) I picked it up at the suggestion of a close friend. As I was reading, I heard from other friends quite a bit of hype about this sports drama from the early 1930's. NOw that I look back, I recall that much of the hype and enthusiasm for this book came from .... well.... "older" readers. I LOVE historical tales, but this one moved too slowly for me.
The central character in this true story is Joe Rantz, a boy who came from nowhere and nothing to compete on the rowing team at the University of Washington. Rowing is a sport of eastern elites; teams from Harvard, Cornell, and Yale usually dominate. Boys in the Boat meticulously recounts the creation and training of the team that would eventually surprise the rowing elite and compete for gold in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.
The original book was too slow for me. I wanted to get to the rowing part and the "up by his bootstraps" tale of Joe took too long for me. On the other hand, they young readers edition moved a bit too fast. Sorry. I guess that means I am an in-between reader! I wanted to read about Joe and his difficult family life, but I wanted to get to the sport as well. I ended up going outside the text to find out more about rowing:
If you enjoy sports books, this is for you. If you enjoy historical memoirs, you will like this one.
1 comment:
Jordan Hunt
True Legend
In this book that I read, It starts out talking about a little kid that is a basketball player that thinks he has seen a ghost. His name is Drew Robinson. He thought that he had seen it on the the basketball court below his condo on a basketball court playing. In the book, Drew said, “He had old classic Air Jordan shoes. They were high tops that were red and black.” Drew went and spied on the ghost, and he saw him do a dunk and he went and asked for tips. The ghost ran so fast out of there it was like lightning. He watched the ghost play and he noticed that something about him thought he had played in the NBA. Drew did do some research almost every night. Drew played basketball almost every single day, on any basketball court he could find, and play on. He later then was told by his mom that he would need to move because she has some business stuff she had to take care of. So they moved and he thought he would not be able to get on or find a basketball team for high school. The ghost also followed him to his next location where he was moving to. He ended up finding a friend on the basketball team. His name was Lee. He did end up finding a basketball team called Oakley. He was going against the best team which was there rivalry. They were all tied up at half time and they were up by two. Their opponent’s name that was the lead scorer for there team was called king. He had dropped pretty much all of parks points. It came down to the final couple of seconds. Oakley down by two, Drew sees that Lee is open and he felt confident about himself. So he ended up shooting the last shot that would make them win by one point. He missed it. Everybody got pretty upset and he went to a party. Everyone told him that he should have passed the ball to Lee. He told them that he felt pretty confident, and that was why he took the shot. He then went back home and Lee sent him a text telling him not to worry about the mistake he had made and to keep moving forward. He then went back to the basketball court that he lived right next to and saw the ghost again. He called it true. His teammates knew that he was studying this ghost legend that could do anything on a court that was impossible to do no matter how long you tried. He told drew that he played well tonight and that he should have made that shot. Drew and the true legend talked for awhile. A couple days later drew told his coach about the legend and they looked up what that meant. They figured out the the ghost was a an NBA star that got kicked off a team for doing drugs, he was so involved in drugs he died early. He was the best basketball player anyone had ever seen. Later they did end up playing park again and they did beat them.
I really enjoyed reading True Legend. I thought it was really good with the description of the characters. The author Mike Lupica would add important details that maybe the reader would need to know. I also liked how it related to actual basketball players that are around nowadays. It was also nice that i could refer to these basketball players because i have heard of them. If you are into sports this book is the way to go.
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