Letter Essay #6 Rivals: Luke Vechiarelli Period 2

 

 

Image result for rivals by tim greenRecently I have recently finished the book Rivals. Rivals is a 264 page realistic fiction book written by Tim Green. Tim is known by the students and teachers because he visited our school while all of us 8th graders were in 5th grade. He has won many awards for several of his books. A few awards he has are the Parents’ Choice Foundation and the junior library guild. I chose to read this book because I love reading about baseball and since I’m a baseball player. I fell in love with this book. I never wanted to put this book down.

 

Josh wants to win the baseball championship for his town, but he gets caught in a rivalry with his towns rival teams star player. Benji wants to help out Josh, but he is really dumb and clumsy so he still helps Josh even though he over thinks almost everything that comes his way. Mickey wants to win and rub it in Josh’s face, but Josh exposed Mickey’s dad paying off the umpires so Mickey has to win the old fashioned way.

 

I liked the way the author, made this book feel like it is in the mind of Josh. From sneaking into Myron’s house, catching Mickey’s dad giving the umpires the money to pay them all off during the games they have all played. This makes the book way better because it is almost like you are a kid and going to all sorts of places like downtown new york city.

 

I was surprised, when I found out that Micky and his dad were paying off all the umpires during the games so that they would win the tournament. Cheating is never the answer to a problem. When Mickey gets busted for paying off the umpires Mickey and his team had to win the old fashioned way.

 

In some ways, this book reminded me of, my summer baseball tournament except, there weren’t coaches paying off the umpires in my league. The book was like a baseball tournament because it was full of surprises and you can never tell what was going to happen.  

 

Finally I was interested in this in this passage after the Tallahassee   coach starts to fight the paid off umpire after a really bad call. Tim Green writes this:  “Holy moly,” Josh said.

“It’s like a Syracuse Express football practice,” Benji said, gawking. “Those guys are always going at it, only the coaches just let ‘em fight ‘cause they say they don’t get paid enough to get a black eye.”

“But did you see that call?” Josh said. “It was the worst call I’ve ever seen.” …(p.123-124)””

 

What I love about this passage is that Tim Green tries to say that there is something wrong happening whenever Mickey’s team is playing another team and this sets the tone for the story. That whenever Mickey is playing and Josh sees the same umpire call every game, everyone starts to think there is something wrong. I give this book a 7/10.

 

Sincerely,

Luke Vechiarelli

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6 thoughts on “Letter Essay #6 Rivals: Luke Vechiarelli Period 2

  1. Luke,
    Your letter-essay has all the things a letter-essay needs, and you use the SWBS strategy to succinctly summarize the book. But when you summarize a book you are telling the reader what it’s about and who it is about. So, for example, when you mention Josh and Benji and Mickey and what they want and so forth, tell the readers about them as well: how old are they? where do they live? etc. And work on adding some textual evidence to your paragraphs in your Reflection. If you do all those things, you will be writing high quality letter-essays by the end of the year.
    Sincerely,
    Mr. Jockers

  2. Hi Luke, It sounds like there’s a real problem going on in the book-the umpires are getting paid off from Micky and his dad. We both know that this is wrong and its no way to win a game. You should win the game the old fashioned way!! It sounds like a book I would like to read. In fact, I’m reading Lost Boy by Tim Green next. Kendall

  3. Hey Luke,

    I was reading through your letter essay and there is a lot of great information in it. I loved how you even included a Link that was related to the book. I enjoyed reading the entire essay and I thought you used lots of awesome writers craft techniques that I really liked!

  4. Hello Luke,

    Amazing letter, I really liked the format of your summary, very organized and well written in a descriptive manner.

    Keep up what your doing!

    Jack C

  5. hey Luke,

    your letter essay is very good nice job you had a really good summary and i liked the way your letter was written.

  6. Dear Luke,
    I really like how you used a link in a place that could have used more of an explanation. I really like that idea, and I might just have to use it in my letter essay. It would have been helpful if you were a little more descriptive. But, you did a great job!

    Sincerely, John

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