From School Library Journal
Grade 4-9-Lipsyte clearly and accurately recounts the champion boxer's rags-to-riches life and the low and high points of his fascinating career. He provides a helpful historical perspective, describing the legacy of Jack Johnson, a black boxer who won the heavyweight championship in 1908. Emphasizing the positive influences of his mother, stepfather, and boxing trainer, the author shows how Louis became a role model for African Americans and a national representative for all Americans. Demonstrating the man's resilience and persistence, he highlights Louis's crushing loss to German boxer Max Schmelling in 1936, his exhilarating victory over Schmelling in a rematch the following year, and the meaning this had for an America that was beginning to flex its muscle against Nazi Germany. The text only alludes to Louis's marital difficulties and his tax problems. It's disappointing that Lipsyte occasionally resorts to the artificial device of fictionalized dialogue. Otherwise, this is an easy-to-read, inspirational account of a 20th-century American hero.
Jack Forman, Mesa College Library, San DiegoCopyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Book Description
Presents the dramatic story of the first black fighter to become a symbol of American power, when Hitler's army was advancing and racial discrimination was still legal in this country.
