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Better Together
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
In the Lower East Side tenements of Manhattan in the late 1800s, there is employment for the city's huge immigrant population--except it's mostly sweatshop labor for little pay. Fifteen-year-old Johnny Woods is desperate to find enough work to support his fatherless family. When he notices a sign in a bar window asking for young men to try their fighting skills, he investigates, hoping to win the five dollar prize. He is unluckily arrested during his first fight, but ironically his luck turns when he meets former lightweight champion Michael O'Shaunnessey in jail. O'Shaunnessey recognizes Johnny's raw talent and begins training him as a serious boxer.
In the Lower East Side tenements of Manhattan in the late 1800s, there is employment for the city's huge immigrant population--except it's mostly sweatshop labor for little pay. Fifteen-year-old Johnny Woods is desperate to find enough work to support his fatherless family. When he notices a sign in a bar window asking for young men to try their fighting skills, he investigates, hoping to win the five dollar prize. He is unluckily arrested during his first fight, but ironically his luck turns when he meets former lightweight champion Michael O'Shaunnessey in jail. O'Shaunnessey recognizes Johnny's raw talent and begins training him as a serious boxer.
Once out of the clink, Johnny is winning fights, working regularly in the posh uptown New York Athletic Club, and saving money for a new home for his family in Brooklyn. But then Johnny's winning concentration is shot with the return of his alcoholic father. Does he have the stamina to continue as the family breadwinner, confront his father, and still win in the ring? A Rocky for the late 19th century, The Boxer is a good solid story with plenty of heart. Author Kathleen Karr (The Great Turkey Walk) gives Johnny an engaging first person voice: "The mind was a muscle, like any other.... But how you exercised it diagramming sentences ... hadn't dawned on me yet." His troubles with money and family will ring true with contemporary teens, while the historical setting will delight teachers, who will surely want to recommend this book as supplemental reading when teaching about the urban industrial age. (Ages 11 to 15) --Jennifer Hubert
From Publishers Weekly
Karr (The Great Turkey Walk) offers an enticing mix of sports action, family drama and period detail in this saga of an amateur boxer growing up in 19th-century Manhattan. Fifteen-year-old Johnny's skill with his fists is as impressive as his high morals and deep devotion to family. After his drunken father runs off, Johnny assumes the role of head of the household. Money being tight, the teen attempts to earn an extra $5 by entering an illegal fight. His subsequent arrest turns out to be fortuitous. In jail, Johnny meets fellow convict Michael O'Shaunnessey, an ex-middleweight champ, who acts as Johnny's personal trainer, manager and mentor. The strenuous workouts Johnny and his new coach begin in their shared cell set into motion a series of events that continues long after their release from prison. On top of Johnny's goal of becoming a champ, he yearns to finish high school and move his family out of their tenement. Most readers will be willing to suspend their disbelief of Johnny's record number of wins long enough to cheer him on during his struggle to fight fair both inside and outside of the ring. The book's one-two-punch pacing and warmhearted resolutions will keep the pages turning. Ages 12-up. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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