Heat

PLOT SUMMARY I read the book Heat by Michael Lupica. This book is about a boy named Michael. Michael is from Cuba. He came over to America on a boat when he was a young boy. Michael is an amazing baseball pitcher and he pitches for his Bronx little league team. He is the star pitcher on his team. His dream is to go to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Michael is so good that another team questions his age. They believe Michael is older than he says he is and they ask for a birth certificate. The problem is that Michael does not have a birth certificate in the United States. Also, both of his parents have died and his 17 year old brother Carlos, is now secretly taking care of him. He and Carlos are living without their parents and since Carlos is under 18 years old, the way they are living is illegal. They are both worried that someone will find out and then, they will be separated.

Michael also has more on his mind. Michael met a girl at the baseball field. Michael likes her and her name is Ellie. Ellie is Cuban, just like Michael, and their fathers both sang a song to them about Misifuz the cat. One day Michael and Manny (Michael’s best friend) are watching the Yankees game on television. El Grande is the pitcher on the Yankees and he is Michael’s favorite player because he is Cuban. El Grande’s family is shown on the television screen during the game while he is pitching. The screen shows El Grande’s wife and two daughters. One of the daughters is Ellie. Ellie had never told Michael or Manny that she is El Grande’s daughter so Michael gets really mad at Ellie. The next time Michael sees Ellie at the field he starts yelling at her. Ellie walks away from Michael while Manny is trying to calm him down.

Michael feels really bad about yelling at Ellie and he wants to apologize to her. Michael thinks about how he could tell Ellie about how sorry he is and he comes up with a plan. His plan is to go to Yankee Stadium before the game and give a note to El Grande for him to give to Ellie saying that he was sorry and to call him. When Michael goes to Yankee Stadium to give the note to El Grande, all of the reporters and people trying to get autographs were around him, so Michael could not get his attention. Now Michael has an idea, he screams at the top of his lungs the lyrics from the song Misifuz the cat (the song that Michael's dad and Ellie's dad ,El Grande, sang to them). El Grande finally turned around and asked who was talking about mizifuz the cat. The group around El Grande was now silent as Michael stepped forward. Michael then gave El Grande the note that he had written for Ellie. El Grande nodded and then turned around and walked into the clubhouse.

The next little league game was the semi finals against the team that had asked for Michael's birth certificate. Michael was still going to all of the games even though he could not play. He would be the third base coach instead. During the middle of the game they were losing by a fair amount and El Grande, Ellie, Carlos, and two official persons walked into the ballpark. They were all headed straight for Michael. The game stopped and everyone was staring right at Michael. Michael was curious of what was going on, but when everyone got there he found out. El Grande had gotten Michael's birth certificate! Now Michael could play! Michael did play and he pitched his team out of the loss and they won!!!!!! Time for the Little League World Series!

CHARACTER The main character in Heat is Michael Arroyo. Michael is a really nice, harmless person. He is also an amazing baseball player. One time, a kid from another team was making fun of Michael saying that he couldn't play and Michael just ignored the boy. This showed that Michael is a calm boy.

MY THOUGHTS The reason why I read this book was because a lot of people told me that it was good and they were right. I thought this book was great. It had a really good plot. I liked how Ellie ended up being El Grande's daughter. I thought that was a good twist.

7 READING STRATEGIES One of the 7 reading strategies that I used was mental image. Mike Lupica's writing is very detailed and when it is detailed then it is a lot easier to picture the story, like a movie running in your mind.

AUTHOR The author of Heat is Mike Lupica. Mike Lupica also wrote the book Travel Team. Travel team was the #1 New York Times best-selling book. I plan on reading Travel Team sometime during the school year.