Heart of a Champion

May 3, 1993
Baseball becomes a metaphor for life in Deuker's thought-provoking testimonial to friendship and filial love. Narrator Seth, who lost his father at age seven, becomes a baseball fanatic five years later, when he starts playing ball with Jimmy Winter and Jimmy's perfectionist father. But Mr. Winter is hardly perfect: an alcoholic, he abruptly moves out and stops seeing Jimmy, then months later shows up, drunk, at a ballgame. Jimmy subsequently moves away, but Seth has been so strongly influenced that he's even eligible for the honors program in high school. Seth joins junior varsity baseball and is thrilled when Jimmy moves back and also makes the team. They start attending weekly beer-drinking parties at the home of teammate Todd. To his despair, Seth gets left in J.V. while Jimmy and Todd become varsity stars, even though they're suspended once for drinking. Eventually Seth makes the varsity squad and, along with Todd, quits drinking. But even with athletic stardom beckoning, Jimmy doesn't sober up, and the consequences are tragic. Deuker ( On the Devil's Court ) writes grittily, with action worthy of the sports page. Yet the sensitive examination of the importance of a father--or lack of one--in a boy's life is where Deuker really hits a home run. Ages 12-up.

June 1, 1993
Gr 6-10- -On the day Seth Barham met Jimmy Winter, his life changed. Seth had been an unfocused, confused pre-teen who had never come to terms with his father's death when he was seven. He meets Jimmy in a park as Jimmy's overbearing father is putting his son through intense baseball drills. As their friendship develops, Jimmy's intensity and self-assurance on the playing field spills over into Seth's life, helping him to blossom as a student and a baseball player. However, Jimmy's home life begins to unravel when his parents divorce. Also, he is suspended from the team when he develops a drinking problem. Seth withstands peer pressure to drink, and, with his mother's support, begins to accept his father's death. However, his biggest battle comes when he must cope with Jimmy's death in an auto accident. Baseball action permeates the story, increasing the novel's interest to those readers familiar with the sport but setting up possible barriers for the uninitiated. Seth's simply told, often moving first-person narrative is meant to be his way of accepting the two losses in his life. However, although the semi-therapeutic story covers three years in the boys' baseball lives, it largely ignores their school lives and some readers may wonder what else they did. Mixing themes common to many YA coming-of-age titles with strong character development, this easy-to-read and well-paced novel will involve many readers. -Jack Forman, Mesa College Library, San Diego

June 1, 1993
Gr. 8-10. Readers who enjoyed Deuker's "On the Devil's Court" (1989) will be lining up to read his second novel, which explores the five-year friendship of two boys. Baseball has been the basis for Seth and Jimmy's friendship, from their first meeting on a practice field when they were 12 through their time together in summer leagues and on high school teams. Jimmy taught Seth how to play the game, encouraged him to excel, pushed him to his limits, and taught him to love the sport. The game also bridged the problems and differences in their lives: Seth's father's death, Jimmy's father's alcoholism and Jimmy's own drinking problem, and Seth's academic achievement. When Jimmy's drinking leads to a tragic accident, Seth realizes that their shared love of the game is a link that can't be broken and that what he gained from his friendship with Jimmy will never be lost. Deuker provides sports action and playing tips enough to appeal to even reluctant readers and surrounds them with a sensitive, fast-paced plot filled with well-developed characters. ((Reviewed June 1993))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1993, American Library Association.)

May 2, 1994
This compelling tale of baseball and friendship, PW said, ``hits a home run'' with its ``action worthy of the sports page.'' Ages 12-up.

January 1, 1993
Seth struggles to understand his best friend, Jimmy, and to come to terms with his own father's death. The boys play on baseball teams together, and there is no shortage of play-by-play action in the narrative. When Jimmy is rejected by his father and becomes involved with alcohol, Seth alternately tries to protect him and rejects his behavior. The compelling coming-of-age novel offers a sensitive, moving portrait of adolescence.

(Copyright 1993 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)