At Gleason's Gym
Roaring Brook Press, 2007
Pages: 40
Suggested Ages: 5-10
ISBN-13: 9781596432314
Follow nine-year-old boxing champ Sugar Boy Younan as he spends a Saturday in Brooklyn training with other athletes—kids and adults, male and female—in “the most famous boxing gym in the world.” Combining a poetic descriptive text, gritty, realistic watercolors, and shaded pencil sketches, this evocative picture book envelops the reader in a you-are-there experience of the sweat, excitement, noise, intense concentration, and fun of sparring in the ring. Lewin was himself a professional wrestler as a teen; his admiration and respect for the “music of the gym” captures and humanizes an unfamiliar world. Your listeners can compare how they’ve trained and sweated for their favorite sports.
Themes: ATHLETES. BOXING. MULTICULTURAL BOOKS. SPORTS.
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This book is as much about feelings as it is about action. Although words like friendship, determination, devotion, and love aren't stamped across the pages, they are still there.
- Ilene Cooper, Booklist
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You can practically smell the sweat and- thanks to the sound effects artfully graffiti’d on various pages- hear the thump, thump of the heavy bags, the ratatatatatat of the speed bags and the buzz of the buzzer starting the round.
- Book World
- Still, aspiring fighters and youngsters with an interest in boxing will appreciate witnessing Sugar Boy's tireless training from ringside seats.
- Publishers Weekly
- The naturalistically painted images are more effective than photographs in conveying information while evoking emotion.
- Children