The Contender

By Robert Lipsyte

Subjects: African American youth, Boxing, fiction, Dropouts, African American boxers, African Americans, African americans, fiction, Large type books, Sports, African American teenage boys, Boxers (Sports), Gangs, Boxing stories, Fiction, Children's fiction, Boxing, High school dropouts, Juvenile fiction, African American Ghettoes, Juvenile delinquency, African American teenagers

Description: Before you can be a champion,you have to be a contender.Alfred Brooks is scared. He's a high school dropout and his grocery store job is leading nowhere. His best friend is sinking further and further into drug addiction. Some street kids are after him for something he didn't even do. So Alfred begins going to Donatelli's Gym, a boxing club in Harlem that has trained champions. There he learns it's the effort, not the win, that makes the man — that last desperate struggle to get back on your feet when you thought you were down for the count.