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Knockout Games
Knockout Games
Knockout Games
Ebook287 pages3 hours

Knockout Games

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For Kalvin Barnes, the only thing that comes close to the rush of playing the knockout game is watching videos of the knockout game.

Kalvin's crew always takes videos of their KOs, but Kalvin wants more—something better. He thinks if someone could really see the game for what it was, could appreciate it, could capture the essence of it—that would be a video for all time. The world would have to notice.

That's where Erica comes in. She's new in town. Awkward. Shy. White. But she's got a good camera and a filmmaker's eye. She could learn. Kalvin could open her eyes to the power he sees in the knockout game; he could make her see things his way. But first she'll have to close her eyes to everything else.

For a while, Kalvin's knockouts are strangers. For a while, Erica can ignore their suffering in the rush of creativity and Kalvin's attention. Then comes the KO that forces her eyes open, that makes her see what's really happening.

No one wins the knockout game.

Coretta Scott King Award honoree G. Neri captures the notorious and terrifying knockout game and its players in an unflinching novel that's hard to read and impossible to put down.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateAug 1, 2014
ISBN9781467765930
Author

G. Neri

G. Neri is the Coretta Scott King honor-winning author of Yummy: the Last Days of a Southside Shorty and the recipient of the Lee Bennett Hopkins Promising Poet Award for his free verse novella, Chess Rumble. His novels include Surf Mules and the Horace Mann Upstander Award-winning Ghetto Cowboy. His latest books include the YA novel Knockout Games, and the picture book biography Hello, I'm Johnny Cash. His work has been honored by the Museum of Tolerance and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Antioch University, the International Reading Association, the American Library Association, the Junior Library Guild, and the National Council for Teachers of English. Neri has been a filmmaker, animator, teacher, and digital media producer. He currently writes full-time and lives on the Gulf Coast of Florida with his wife and daughter.

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Rating: 3.1875 out of 5 stars
3/5

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Raw, tough, and compelling.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    This will play better in a more urban area I think. I'm not sure my rural kids could identify with this one even though it's quite a message.

Book preview

Knockout Games - G. Neri

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