Next Round: A Young Athlete’s Journey to Gold

by John Spray
Pajama Press
978-1-927485-99-6
112 pp.
Ages 10-14
July 2016

The 2016 Olympics are on in Rio and the media will be trumpeting the success stories of many an athlete, but Chechen-born Canadian boxer Arthur Biyarslanov has a story like no other.  And it’s a story that John Spray, benefactor of the TD Children’s John Spray Mystery Award, tells with inspiration and appreciation in Next Round: A Young Athlete’s Journey to Gold.

Arthur Biyarslanov’s story begins as a three-year-old escaping with his mother, Alla, twelve- and eleven-year-old sisters Bariyat and Bella, and nine-year-old brother Rustam from their war-stricken village of Gudermes in Chechnya to meet up with his father, Hairuddin, in Azerbaijan.  Facing soldiers with rifles and tanks and grenade-launchers of the Russian forces attempting to seize the Chechen republic was hardly an idyllic childhood for Arthur, affectionately called Borz, Chechen for wolf.  Their harrowing escape reunites the family in the windy city of Baku, Azerbaijan where he and his brother play with a makeshift soccer ball of socks and electrical tape to escape the austere conditions of their apartment and new life amongst strangers.  Soccer becomes Arthur’s salvation, helping him to learn the Azerbaijani language and fit in.

After the death of his father, the family deals with their new poverty by moving to even small quarters in a tough neighbourhood where Arthur, the new kid and target of bullies, becomes known as a fearless fighter but competitive athlete.  Though soccer is his sport of choice, Arthur often spars with his brother and sister Bella who were both karate champions, becoming a proficient wrestler, albeit a clumsy one.  And then his mother decides a fresh start is needed for the family and Canada would be it.

In Toronto, Arthur continues with his soccer, making new friends, learning English and becoming even more athletic,  including running and basketball in his many activities, though soccer is still his first love.  But a broken leg at the beginning of Grade 7 and subsequent slow recovery has Arthur concentrating on sports that demand more from his upper-body strength, leading him to boxing.  Though he knows he has lots to learn–he gets beat up regularly at sparring sessions–his brother Rustam knew “the Chechen Wolf would be a champion boxer.” (pg. 74)

The rest of Arthur’s story, peppered with numerous photographs, documents the young man’s rise in the boxing ring under the coaching of former Olympian John Kalbhenn and working with trainer Danny Santagato, whom Arthur affectionately calls Uncle Danny. From his first bout in 2008 to a rivalry with Zsolt Daranyi Jr. and having to choose between soccer and boxing, Arthur makes boxing his vocation, training tirelessly, and focusing on getting gold at the 2015 Pan Am games.

John Spray’s intent in writing Next Round is heartfelt and clearly evident from his dedication:

For all those children who escaped the horrors of war to find peace and new beginnings…and for Arthur, who replaced the sound of gunfire with the smack of leather on a punching bag.

The purpose of the book is clear but it’s John Spray’s writing that will capture Arthur Biyarslanov’s story better than any colour commentator could ever hope to relay as the boxer reaches for gold at this year’s Olympics.  John Spray, who owns a private investigations agency and is great lover of mysteries, tells Biyarslanov’s story as the harrowing action story that it is.  From witnessing at age three the massacre by Russian soldiers of  Chechens desperately attempting to flee for Azerbaijan, to the family’s escape across the cold water of the Yujniy Gerzel River into Dagestan and Arthur’s regular conflicts with the frightening old Azerbaijani woman whose fruit tree he climbs and his contentious boxing relationship with Zsolt, Next Round: A Young Athlete’s Journey to Gold is a  gripping story whose next chapter is still untold.

But no matter what the next round in his sport may bring, Arthur’s hard work and tireless dedication to boxing will give any opponent he faces a scare when looking into the hungry eyes of the Chechen Wolf. (pg. 100)

Burned, Exposed, Unleashed: Retribution series

But each of us had taken on the responsibility of protecting or avenging those few who had become dear to us.  Willing to risk our lives to see justice done.  We were all so different and yet so much the same. (Exposed, pg. 86)

Three teens: Josie, Raven and Jace.  Three injustices needing to be righted.  One series.  Retribution.

Exposed
by Judith Graves
Orca Book Publishers
978-1-4598-0726-6
137 pp.
Ages 12+
October 2015

Although the three books in the series can be read in any order–I read Unleashed first, then Burned and Exposed–and my image shows the books in alphabetical order,  I’d like to start with Judith Graves’ contribution to the series, Exposed.  Exposed is Raven’s story.  Raven, who has left the home of her meth-addicted parents, has found a new family working with other young people as an urban climber getting into high-end, secure car parkades to steal cars for Diesel.  And climbing is a release for her.

From here all my worries seemed smaller, so small they could be tucked away in my pocket and forgotten, like empty candy wrappers that would someday just slip away unnoticed.  (pg. 32)

Raven anticipates leaving this life when she turns 16 in a few weeks, diligently going to school and secretly saving her money and purchasing a houseboat for herself, and, to that end, Diesel has her training a younger climber Supersize.  But when Diesel sets up Supersize before he’s ready to lead a team and tragedy ensues, Raven is determined to get even with Diesel.

Burned
by Natasha Deen
Orca Book Publishers
978-1-4598-0726-6
161 pp.
Ages 12+
October 2015

While scouting out cars to steal, she meets Josie, the main character in Natasha Deen’s Burned. Jo has been on the streets for two years and has learned the way to survive is to trust no one, show no fear and that “hope is just another way to spell dead” (pg. 26).  But, though Josie has found a way to make herself useful,  scouting security leaks for a family grocer, helping stock shelves at a community kitchen, and painting art forgeries, she’s still looking for retribution against the woman responsible for the deaths of her mother and younger siblings.  Josie is out to

Burn her with the same heat she used to set my life on fire, and the orange red flames that scorched the breath from my family will cauterize her soul. (pg. 3)

Josie is out to prove this woman cop shot her family and another young woman, but she needs the help of  ATM Guy whom she spots using his tech skills to steal money at the family grocer.  When she approaches him to try to get evidence from the cop’s laptop, she learns that his name is Bentley and his brother is Jace, whom she refers to as Boxer Boy because of his physique, and so the third protagonist is introduced.

Unleashed
by Sigmund Brouwer
Orca Book Publishers
978-1-4598-0726-6
160 pp.
Ages 12+
October 2015

Jace, Sigmund Brouwer’s protagonist in Unleashed, leads a double life: one as a boxer slumming it at Billy’s gym, and one as the preppie, chess-playing son of disgustingly wealthy and emotionally-abusive Dr. Winchester Wyatt.

Life, to me, was a combination of chess and boxing.  You had to think everything through a couple of moves ahead and also be prepared to pound hard and often. (pg. 107)

Jace  is determined to get something on his father, especially because of the  horrific way he treats Jace’s tech-brilliant younger brother, Bentley, who was born with Laron syndrome which manifests as dwarfism.  Though he enlists a private detective and then Raven and Josie’s help to learn of some scandal in Winchester’s medical background, Jace has major trust issues and has to find a way to determine whom he can expect to be forthcoming and cooperative without taking advantage of his wealth.

The stories in Retribution are complex and intricate and the plot and characters interlaced in sophisticated weaves.  Writing the books must have been a complicated process for Judith Graves, Natasha Deen and Sigmund Brouwer.  But, the three authors stepped up, pen or laptops in hand, and were able to create a coordinated story with multiple plotlines while keeping their own writing voices unique and distinct.  That’s quite an accomplishment, especially for high-interest YA told in about 150 pages each. And, in the end, I believe that, though Raven, Jo and Jace are involved in less-than-legal schemes to get retribution, readers will admire their determination to seek justice.

I stopped thinking about my sorrows and focused on something else. Infinite possibilities. (Unleashed, pg. 160)

I’m hopeful that Jo, Raven, Jace and Bentley will continue to be that irrepressible team that is “living in the shadows, dispensing their own kind of justice” (Unleashed, pg. 156) and I look forward to their next quests for retribution.

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Remember: Orca Book Publishers has a contest on until November 30, 2015 (see my post about it here).  It's all about those infinite possibilities.