The Boxer (book)
From AwardAnnals
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| Author(s) | Kathleen Karr |
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| Publisher | Farrar, Straus & Giroux |
| Honors | |
| Having learned how to box while in prison, fifteen-year-old Johnny sets out to discover if he can make a decent living as a fighter in late nineteenth-century New York City. | |
Hard-hitting historical fiction
Ever since his father ran off two years before, fifteen-year-old Johnny Woods has struggled to help support his ma and five siblings, sacrificing his own schooling in the process. Still, there’s been hardly enough money each month to make the rent, and Johnny’s dream of a house in Brooklyn, away from the tenement slums, is out of reach.
Then Johnny discovers boxing. He is a natural-born fighter, with street smarts, determination, and an explosive uppercut. Although boxing is illegal in 1885 New York, Johnny powers his way through every obstacle, believing he has found the means to raise himself and his family out of poverty. But as he moves closer to his biggest fight yet, Johnny must reconcile his need to help his loved ones with a sharpening desire to achieve something outside the ring, starting with his education. In bringing to life Johnny’s struggle and ultimate success, Kathleen Karr offers readers a compelling portrait of an appealing young champion.
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.
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
