Chess Rumble by G. Neri is about Marcus, a tough teen growing up in the inner city. His life is turned upside down when his sister dies of a heart attack. Suddenly, Marcus is extremely angry. He gets into fights all the time, at home and at school, picks on his younger twin brothers, and even threatens his own mother. His father eventually leaves the family, and Marcus feels alone. Things escalate at school, where Latrell, a long-time rival of Marcus's, picks on him and beats him up. One afternoon while playing basketball, Marcus stumbles upon some tough old guys playing chess in the park. One challenges him to a match. Not wanting to back down, Marcus tries, but loses badly to his opponent. CM, the chess master, helps Marcus realize that chess, like life, is all about knowing your moves in advance and anticipating the outcomes before doing anything. As Marcus becomes better and better at chess, things in his life start getting better - he even invites Latrell to play with him!This was a quick read for me. I really enjoyed the story and how the author portrayed all of the characters. The character of Marcus seems so familiar to me. I also enjoyed the way the author used street vernacular. It makes the story seem believable. I think this would appeal to a wide audience.
2 comments:
I thought this book was not that good, but it was not that bad either. The street language made the book better. If they did not have street language I would probably say it was not good. In the end the book was okay.
The book Chess Rumble is about a kid who wants to play chess. He loves watching his dad play chess with his sister, but one day he finds out that his sister dies. He always gets so sad that he starts to get into a lot of fights. There's this one kid that Marcus doesn't like. His name is Latrell. The reason Marcus doesn't like Latrell is because he calls him a real mean name. The name is Fat Albert. So one day he's walking home after playing ball with his freinds and then he sees Latrell. Latrell calls him Fat Albert again and Marcus wants to fight Latrell. He has two small muscular kids and he fights them. Then Marcus said in the book "I just got jumped." Then the mom sees Marcus get home and see says baby you okay. Marcus says "yeah im okay." Then his brother and sister twins start giving him respect. I forgot one thing. He starts to play a kid in chess named Lil K. He loses all the time then Marcus finally beats him 5 times in a row. Then the kids start calling him the Chess Master. That's a summary of the book.
I kind of disliked this, and I kind of liked it. I didn't like it because of the language. It was kinda hard to read. I liked it because it was just a good book like you said. The illustrations were pretty good, but one thing I thought was really sad was when Marcus lost his sister. I can understand why he was acting like that in school but that's not an excuse to act that way and almost get suspended at your school. Mostly I liked it and that's all I have to say.
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