NOTE: COHS Titans–The following review is excerpted from the Junior Library Guild. (Meaning that I didn’t write it and don’t want to take credit from something I didn’t do!) We belong to the Junior Library Guild and purchase four books from them each month, so we have access to these reviews. I’m going to start posting excerpts from the reviews in the hope that you will see what great books we get from JLG–and come check them out! If you want to read the whole review, ask your English teacher. I have made copies for him or her to post in the classroom.

Why I Fight by J. Adams Oaks

When Uncle Spade, an unemployed drifter, saves twelve-year-old Wyatt Reaves from his neglectful parents, Wyatt thinks he’s found a real home. But all Spade sees in Wyatt is a potential meal ticket: a taller-than-average kid with a mean punch who could become a bare-fist fighting champion with the proper training. By the time Wyatt is fourteen, he can win any fight—but that doesn’t mean he enjoys it. How can he break away from his uncle when Spade is the only family who’s ever really cared for him?

JLG Review: The moving story of a good-hearted boy thrust into the dangerous world of bare-fist fighting, Why I Fight offers a look at how a sport can become a means of escape for someone in desperate circumstances.