Right when I pulled the book out of the box, I began reading it. Though I was not expecting it to be written in verse, it had a nice flow and my excitement continued to build, especially with the beautiful illustrations by Kadir Nelson.
I found myself feeling swept away by Joe Louis' story and loved the description of his personality, humility, and perseverance. Yet, somewhere along the way, I started to notice something that bothered me about the book. I realized that while Joe was typically mentioned by name, his opponent, Max Schmeling, was more often than not referred to as "The German" or "Hitler's German", rather than by name.
It made me wonder more about the back story of the matches between Louis and Schmeling. When I did a quick web search on Schmeling, the first site to come up was the Wikipedia reference. Albeit it is necessary to take Wikipedia sources with a grain of salt, and this particular one even has a notice that the article needs additional citations for verification, I knew that it would at least help to orient me a little bit more to get the context of the book. I also skimmed Louis' page.
In Schmeling's description, I noticed the explanation of how he was portrayed in the United States as well as in Germany, in contrast to who he really was as a person. I was most interested in the following sentences, that did not have any citations,
The clash of politics, ideals, and countries that often symbolically accompanied his biggest fights only took place within the perceptions of the audience; they had nothing to do with what happened in the ring. Instead of being respected for his multiple accomplishments in the ring, he spent much of his life derided in the USA as a Nazi and dismissed in Germany as a disappointment. It was only in his later life that his status as a fighter, apart from his cultural symbolism, could be clearly analyzed.I am not sure if digging deeper and doing more research would support these claims or not, but these sentences made me wonder about the angle of the book. I also thought about how for me as a reader, the way it was described in some ways took away from what I otherwise would have enjoyed as Louis' story and his triumphs. By almost always referring to Schmeling as "The German," instead of treating him like an individual person, it created an aversion to the book. Yet, I wanted to like the book. I wanted it to be a celebration of Louis and who he was without the questions over Schmeling's portrayal. There was also so much more to love about the book's layout, such as the fun author/illustrator bios on the back flap with the boxing ticket.
Trying to sort through my conflicting feelings about the book, I reread it, as well as the jacket flap information, and part of a sentence stood out to me, "[...] for much of America their fight came to represent the country's war with Germany". That is when I started to think about the angle of the book as showing it through the perception of many at the time, rather than today looking back. I was able to set aside some of my aversions to the references of "the German". It also made me consider the teaching points to discuss, such as perspective, a curiosity to uncover multiple sides to a story, the power of words, and reliability of narrators.
On Amazon, the recommended age range is 4-8; though, I can see it as being appealing to older readers. Because of the illustrations and the various avenues for analysis, the book is lending to thorough discussions and debate. Aside from learning more about Joe Louis, students can talk about perceptions, representations, and shades of truth.
