At Gleason’s Gym

Description

A KNOCKOUT OF A BOOK about the world’s most famous gym.

“At Gleason’s Gym the world works out. It’s down on the Brooklyn waterfront just a left hook away from the Brooklyn Bridge.” This spectacular book puts you smack in the middle of the action. But it’s more than a book about boxing: It’s about the heart of a community, and about the power of practice, perseverance, and staying true to yourself. Paintings, sketches and words by Caldecott Honor artist and former professional wrestler Ted Lewin are your guide to this extraordinary place.

Ted Lewin has written and/or illustrated at least 45 children’s books. In order to finance art school, he became a wrestler–and so began a 15-year part-time career that eventually inspired his autobiography, I Was a Teenage Professional Wrestler (ALA Notable Children’s Book, School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, Booklist Editor’s Choice). He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

“Ted Lewin’s latest book is a gorgeous tribute in deep, rich watercolors to the place where boxing legends such as Muhammad Ali and Jake La Motta once trained. Located “just a left hook away from the Broklyn Bridge,” Gleason’s gym looks like a mixing bowl of the martial arts: “Kickboxers from Thailand, girl boxers, big, burly wrestlers.” As Lewin puts it at the start, “its everybody’s gym.” But its also one particular boys gym, as the book focuses on 9-year-old named Sugar Boy, who opens the big steel door and proceeds to get ready for his next bout. Lewin delivers knock-out, double-page scenes of boxers sparring, jumping rope and shadowboxing “with monsters in fun0house mirrors.” You can practically smell the sweat and- thanks to the sound effects artfully graffiti’d on various pages- hear the thump, thump of the heavy bags, the ratatatatatat of the speed bags and the buzz of the buzzer starting the round.-A.M.N.” —Book World

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