A well-written, impassioned story of sports, friendship, and determination.
A tale of unlikely friendships and camaraderie forged through ice hockey.
Just before the opening of the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, the South Korean women’s ice hockey team became the only team to include North Koreans on its roster. The Unified team fought hard on the ice, but their opponents proved too strong, and the team lost each of their matches. Nonetheless, they won the hearts of Koreans from both sides as well as those from countries around the world. In this feel-good tale of women athletes suddenly placed in the international spotlight, New York Times contributor Berkman takes readers behind the scenes of the South Korean team. He shows each player’s immense passion for a sport that was often not considered suitable for young women. He discusses the American and Canadian Koreans, or “imports,” who were brought in to bolster the team prior to the games and the impact they had on the South Koreans. He shares each woman’s hopes, dreams, and determination to play despite the odds and sacrifices each needed to make, including using old equipment and practicing at late hours due to lack of funds and support from sponsors. “Prior to South Korea being named the host of the 2018 Olympics,” writes the author, “a majority of the women’s team felt that [the Korean Ice Hockey Association] never really cared about them to begin with. Even before the Games, they earned just $50 a day.” In addition to exploring the gender discrimination at play, Berkman weaves in bits of history about the two Koreas and their hostilities toward Japan. Ultimately, what shines through is the women’s passion for their sport and the bonds they forged on and off the ice, alliances that cross an array of boundaries.
A well-written, impassioned story of sports, friendship, and determination.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-335-00553-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Hanover Square Press
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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