|
|
|
|
|
|
HomeShop at BookSurgeShaming of the True |
|
|  |
| Customer Reviews: | | Average Customer Review:
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Christianity's take on sports Jan 30, 2008
Sly Young grew up in Cincinati in a family that could be "the poster family for Middle America." Sly is a strong athlete who wants to play basketball, football, and baseball.
The concept of the novel is to follow Sly's amazing sports career using Christian concepts to detail how to win in sports.
While this is an interesting and particularly useful idea particularly for reluctant young male readers; however, Mr. Tudor needs to work to bring this idea to fruition:
1. The part-lecture and part-story doesn't quite work together as a novel. The lecture defers the action, which seems to be the point of a sports story.
2. Passive Voice of the narrative slows the action quite a bit. The narrative needs to be re-written extensively to cut down on past tense.
3. The story reads more like a biography than a novel. Showing what's going on rather than relating it will help make the story more present-day.
4. Sports is about playing on teams. The author neglected considering Teamwork up front. Describing Sly as a "one man team" seems to negate the concept of Christian fellowship that so many coaches try to inspire in sports and relegates Sly to a selfish position and his Mom into the role as 'stage Mom' and an unsympathetic character. Re-writing this to focus on the idea that Sly needed to be placed on an older team where he could better contribute to his team efforts and showing Sly's Mom working cooperatively with the coach is a much better Christian witness for the readers and their parents.
5. The title of this excerpt intrigued me, but in no way does it seem to relate to the story that the author is trying to tell. While paying homage to the Bard is an honorable endeavor, Mr. Tudor needs to be prepared to explain the syllogism that allowed him to relate the title to his novel's concept.
6. The initial tone of the narration seems to be that winning is everything; however, Biblical teaching emphasizes The Golden Rule above all else. It might be of help to seek a pastoral partner to this writing team to align the Coaching and Christian doctrines together.
Good luck, Mr. Tudor, and thank you for sharing your work with us.
1 of 2 found the following review helpful:
 Interesting concept. Jan 30, 2008
This author is full of great ideas and I think the message is a solid one. The combination of spirituality and sports here is unique and worthwhile. I love the title.
My only concern with the novel is the way the story of Sly and his family is presented. I think the story's a good one and well worth telling, but the author's goals would be better achieved if the Sly story were revealed in a more active way. Right now, it exists largely as a recitation of events and author observations. The injection of more showing vice telling would go a long way toward engaging the reader. While Sly seems to be the main character, the reader doesn't really get to spend much time bonding with him. I'd like to see a future version of this novel with more traditional scenes showing interaction among the characters.
I believe once the kinks are worked out this can be the kind of book that changes lives.
|
| | |
|
|
|
|
|
