PAPERBOY

A championship fight sells newspapers, especially the 1927 rematch between the thinking man's fighter, Gene Tunney, and iron- fisted former champ, Jack Dempsey. Paperboy Willie Brinkman is so sure that Dempsey, the ``workingman's hero,'' will win his title back from ``Gentleman Gene'' (so-called because he reads a lot of books) that he signs up to hawk a late edition, the ``Fight Extra.'' (Oddly, the authors don't dispute the notion—an oversimplification of attitudes of the era—that the ``workingman's hero'' is not the one who reads.) When Dempsey loses, Willie is stuck with newspapers no one wants, but his perseverance pays off when he is rewarded with a busier street corner where he can earn more money for his family. The Brinkmans (including the four girls, all of whom have contemporary hair styles) gather around the radio for a blow-by-blow broadcast; silhouettes of Dempsey and Tunney appear in some of the illustrations for (once all the atmospherics are stripped away) a rather ordinary story of a hardworking boy who makes good. (Picture book. 6-9)