Heat

Heat

By Erik Nelson

Dear Readers,

Heat by Mike Lupica is the book I have just finished reading. I have rated it a 10 out of 10. The reason for my rating is that Heat was a great book that made all other baseball books look bad. I loved the way he describes everything. I could almost see in my head what the Bronx must look like and where he lived, his baseball fields that he played on, Yankee Stadium, and all of the characters.

The main character, Michael Arroyo, is a 13 year old boy with an amazing left arm. He can throw about 80 mph, or so his friend Manny says. Michael and his bother Carlos and his father Papi came from Cuba in hope of starting a new life in America. They lived in an apartment next to Mrs. Cora, an old lady whose daughter ran off young and now is like a grandma to Carlos and Michael.

I wish that Heat had a second book because it was so well written that I just wish I could see what else happens to Michael and friends. When Mike Lupica ends the book Michael is about to play in Yankee Stadium for the championship that will send him to Williamsport. I really wanted to see what happened in that game and what happened after. If they make it to Williamsport or if they lose this game or even Michael gets hurt and can’t play like he couldn’t this book.

I was interested in this passage because it shows how well Mike Lupica writes. “He took a deep breath, went into his windup, kicked his right leg toward the sky, and one last time let the ball fly.” Like I said before I loved this part because it showed how Mike Lupica describes his windup, how fluent and smooth it is.

The genre of this book is fiction. It is not total fiction with like talking robots and stuff like that but it hasn’t happened and most likely it won’t. Although the genre was fiction it was very believable and it could happen to someone but it would be very rare.

I think that Carlos handled a couple of situations wrongly and that he could have been a little more truthful to Michael and Mrs. Cora because they are there to help. One of the situations he could have handled better is the one with scalping tickets at Yankee ballpark. The things he could have done instead would have been telling Mrs. Cora or Michael or someone about his money problem and that he needed help. Second is that he should have known that scalping is wrong and that he can and, I won’t say if he did or not, get into legal trouble.

I wonder why Michael and his family left Cuba to come to America. I know that I already said they left to start a new life but I don’t know if there were other things that the book didn’t tell us about. The things that I also wondered about were that if he ever did make it to Williamsport and also if he ever did throw the big 8-0 as they say in the book or 80 mph.

After I read this book the first thing I did was go on the library catalogue and see if there was a second book. That is how much I loved this book. I will be reading other books from Mike Lupica and I always will wonder how Michael, Carlos, Mrs. Cora, the other people turn out.

Sincerely,

Erik Nelson