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.

Slam

PLOT SUMMARY I read the book called Slam. Slam is about a young black boy named Greg who lives with his younger brother named Derek and his mom and his dad in the hood. He used to go to school in the hood (Carver), but then he transferred to a mostly white school (Latmeir).

Greg is a great basketball player. Greg's nickname is Slam because he can slam dunk like a superstar. Even though Greg is an amazing basketball player, he is not doing to well in school. His grades are slipping and he might get kicked off of the basketball team. It also seems like all Greg's parents do is lecture him about his grades. They don't really ever talk about anything except improving his grades.

Greg goes to the tryouts for his new school's basketball team. Greg ends up playing the coach of the team 1 on 1 and Greg wins. Now the coach has a grudge against Greg and he won't start him, even though he is the best player on the team.

Greg is also worried about his best friend, Ice. Greg and Ice go way back ever since Greg can remember. Greg is worried about Ice because all of a sudden Ice has a whole bunch of cash and Greg doesn't know how he got it. Greg has a theory that Ice has been selling drugs because lately he has been hanging out with some pretty well known drug dealers.

In the end of the book Latmeir ends up facing Carver in a big playoff game. Latmeir wins, so Ice and Greg have a party. During the party Greg talks to Ice about how he thinks that he is selling drugs and Ice admits to Greg that he is selling drugs. Greg tells him how he shouldn't sell drugs and Ice gets mad. They get into a physical fight. Unfortunately, Ice and Greg don't talk for the rest of the book, but Greg is told by Ice's girlfriend that Ice isn't selling drugs anymore.

CHARACTER The main character in Slam is Greg. Greg is a young black boy, living in the hood. Greg is a very caring person in this book. He shows that he is caring by his concern about Ice selling drugs. Greg really cared about Ice and Ice got mad at him just because he cared.

MY THOUGHTS I liked the book a lot. It is one of my favorites. I liked it because the plot was great. I also liked it so much because there was a lot going on all at once. When I was reading it, I never got bored.

7 READING STRATIGIES One of the 7 reading strategies that I used was text to world connection. I was connected to Greg a little bit because I love to play basketball and so does he. He was caring about his friends and I am also caring about my friends.

AUTHOR Walter Dean Myers is the author of my book. He is probably my most favorite author because he writes so nicely and detailed. I also like the plots of his story, they are very clever.

Hoops

PLOT SUMMARY I read the book Hoops by Walter Dean Myers. Hoops is about a boy named Lonnie Jackson who is really good at basketball. Lonnie is just another poor kid on the streets of New York, except for when he plays basketball. He is a great basketball player. Lonnie and all of his friends love to play basketball and they even have their own basketball court. One day Lonnie and his friends are going to the basketball court and they see a drunk man standing there. He says his name is Cal. Cal says that he beats Lonnie in a 1 on 1 basketball game, he will become Lonnie's teams basketball coach. Lonnie says okay, thinking he will crush Cal, but Lonnie ends up losing and now Cal is Lonnie's coach. Lonnie gets mad because he lost, but after a while Cal and Lonnie become friends. Lonnie's team enters a the big citywide tournament and they get to the championships. Lonnie finds out that some bettors want Cal to blow the game. Cal ends up playing Lonnie in the way end of the game and they end up winning. When the gamblers notice that Lonnie is in the game they take Cal into the locker room and stab him.Cal dies.

CHARACTER Lonnie is the main character in this book. Lonnie is an amazing basketball player. He is also really selfish in the beginning of the book. He acts like he is the best basketball player in the world. Then, at the end of the story he becomes very caring and unselfish.

MY THOUGHTS I thought the book was very good because every part of it had you wanting to know what was going to happen next. Whenever Mr. D or Mr. A told us to stop reading I would be disappointed because I wanted to read more.

7 READING STRATEGIESOne of the 7 reading strategies I used was mental images. I love reading Walter Dean Myers books (if you haven't noticed yet) because he is so descriptive. Whenever he introduces a character he says exactly what they look and act like, so you can picture them in your mind.

AUTHOR Walter Dean Myers is the author of my book. He is probably my favorite author. I love reading his books. I have read a lot of books by him like Monster, Malcolm X By Any Means Necessary, and Somewhere In The Darkness. I liked them all.

Malcolm X By Any Means Necessary

PLOT SUMMARY I read the book Malcolm X By Any Means Necessary. This book talks about Malcolm's childhood, growing up around unfriendly white people, and his adulthood, becoming a leader.

Malcolm's original last name was Little. The Littles were a very poor family. Since Malcolm was poor and black, he was the kid everybody picked on. Malcolm's family also moved a lot, so he could not get settled in one town. The reason they moved so much was because Malcolm's father was very involved with the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). The UNIA made a lot of white people angry and they would send death threats to the Little family, so the Littles would have to leave their home. The book says that since Malcolm was a little boy he had been treated unfairly by white people because of his father's work with the UNIA and just for being black.

One night Malcolm woke up because he heard his mother screaming. When Malcolm went downstairs, he saw his mother surrounded by police officers. Malcolm later found out that his father had been killed by a mob of people who pushed him under a trolley. This is just one of the many bad things that white people did to Malcolm's family. Other things include a robbery and someone setting their house on fire while people were still inside of the house (luckily no one got hurt or even killed).

Malcolm, in his teenager days, became a criminal. He was caught stealing a jewel and got sent to prison. Malcolm got a longer sentence because he was stealing the jewel with two white girls as his accomplices and even talking to a white girl back then was a crime.

When Malcolm got out of prison he learned his lesson not to steal. He decided to join The Nation Of Islam. Malcolm became very involved with The Nation Of Islam. The Nation Of Islam was a large group of black people that hated white people and were being taught to hate white people. It was founded by Elijah Muhammad. Malcolm helped Elijah Muhammad form many temples and he even ran one of the temples. Malcolm was having a few disagreements with Elijah Muhammad and he left The Nation Of Islam. Many people from The Nation Of Islam did not agree with Malcolm leaving and he started getting death threats.

When Malcolm left The Nation Of Islam, he took a spiritual trip to Mecca, Egypt. There he met the Prime Minister. When Malcolm came back to the United States he formed a group called the Afro American Unity which fought for equal treatment for all races.

CHARACTER Malcolm X was the main character in my book. I thought Malcolm was very passionate and devoted to his work, whatever work that he was doing. He also was very brave to stand up to white people like he did.

7 READING STRATEGIES In the book I used the important information reading strategy. There was a lot of information that did not really matter to the plot of the story.

MY THOUGHTS I liked the book very much because it was inspirational. I also thought it was a little boring from time to time. I found myself drifting off from the book and thinking about what I was going to have for dinner. I would recommend this book, but I wouldn't say it was a great book it was just a good book.

AUTHOR Walter Dean Myers was the author of my book. I love the way Walter Dean Myers writes. I have read other books by him and I have loved them also like Monster.