This is a very good book again for the baseball player looking for a good read. Its also a good book for the young players because it refers to the Little League World Series. It also tells the story of a young boy named Michael Arroyo who came over from Cuba to live the American dream and play baseball.

Personal Response: I read the book, Heat, by Mike Lupica. This book was one of the best books I have read in a long time. I do not normally read sports books, but this one had an amazing story. I always looked forward to reading the book, and I even read some of it in my personal time because I liked it so much. I thought this was a very good book.

Plot: The book starts out with the main character, Michael Arroyo, stopping a robber by hitting him with a baseball. Michael is very good at throwing a baseball. He is the star pitcher on his little league team, The Clippers. Michael’s dream is going to the Little League Championship in Williamsport, and this year his team has a really good chance of going. The only problem standing in Michael's way is he does not have a birth certificate, and his father just passed away. Michael and his brother, Carlos, have a plan to avoid the social services people and the cops until Carlos is old enough to adopt Michael. Their plan is going well until one baseball game a coach questions Michael's age and demands a birth certificate. Michael is unable to provide a birth certificate, so he sits out games. He still goes to practices and hangs out with his buddies. His closest friend is Manny. One day, Michael and Manny are playing catch and they notice girl watching them. She comes over and introduces herself. Her name is Ellie. Michael fell instantly in love with her. Ellie comes to the ball park and plays baseball with them whenever she is in town. She is always very mysterious. One day, Michael is watching T.V. and he finds out that Ellie is a famous baseball player's daughter. The baseball player is El Grande. The next day, Michael goes to the baseball park and gets angry at Ellie for not telling them who she really is. This scares her off. A couple weeks go by and Ellie does not return. Michael decides to go to the Yankee stadium and give a letter to El Grande. El Grande takes the letter and does not say a word. The next day is the most important game in the season for Michael's team. It determines whether they make it to the championship or not. They make it to the game, and they are off to a bad start. It is halfway through the game, and they are down by three points. All of a sudden, El Grande shows up out of nowhere with his daughter and an official looking person. El Grande walks up to Michael and tells him that Ellie told him all about his situation and had all of his connections come up with a birth certificate for Michael. He also brought a social services agent to give Michael's brother custody of Michael. After El Grande’s and Michael’s meeting, Michael goes into play the baseball game. They end up winning the game and they go to Williamsport.

Characterization: The main character in the book is Michael Arroyo. He is a 12 year old boy who is very good at baseball. Michael is originally from Cuba and sometimes speaks Spanish. He has black hair and darker tan skin. He lives in New York City. Another main character is Manny. Manny is also 12 years old, and he is Michael's best friend. Manny is also Cuban and has darker skin like Michael. He is the catcher for the Clippers, and is the jokester on the team. Ellie is another character in the book. She is 12 years old. Ellie is the most beautiful girl in the world to every boy in this book. She too is also Cuban. Her father is the famous baseball player, El Grande.

Impact of Setting: The book takes place in the Bronx. Michael lives close to the Yankees stadium. This allows him to meet El Grande and his daughter. If they lived anywhere else, they most likely would have never met.

Importance of Theme: I think the theme of this book is heavily based on friendship. If it were not for his friends, Michael would never have gotten a birth certificate or a chance to play in his dream game. Friendship is shown throughout this entire book. Michael is always with his friends and he could not of completed his dreams without them. Friends are very important in this book.

Rating/ Recommendation: I give the book, Heat, five out of five stars. I recommend this to everybody 10 years and older. I think it best suits boys in high school and middle school, because it has a main character who is a boy . The book is more geared towards boys because, the story is about a boy and his friends who are also boys. I rate this book five out of five stars because I enjoyed this book from start to finish. It was an amazing book all around.

I thought this was a very interesting and attention-grabbing book. I have a connection to this book because I am a pitcher for my baseball team, so I know how the main charatcer, Michael Arroyo, feels when he is on the mound for his baseball team. This book is about a young Cuban boy named Michael Arroyo, whose parents have both died, leaving he and his 17 year-old brother, Carlos, to fend for themselves. Michael is a fantasatic pitcher and can throw a fastball above 80mph. However, Michael is at risk of being sent back to Cuba because he has no proof of age, no birth certificate, and no parents to protect him. To find out the exciting conclusiopn to this book, I suggest reading this fantastic story. I think it was intended for teens, so that they can understand what it's like to lose both of your parents at a young age. I would recommend this book for any sports fans or anyone that wants to read an exciting book because this book deals with baseball and is very suspenseful. Overall, I think it was a very solid novel.

Unreal book it’s timeless highly recommended!

There is a kid named michael arroyo and he can throw really fast pitches.Even though people think he has a really good life but he does not.Michael is an orphan and his father helped escape from cuba.Even though Michael is only 17 years old he has a really sad life.I recommend this book to sports fans like myself.

Personal Response: Heat was a very quick and easy read. The book did still manage to entertain me, however. I shared my love of baseball with the main character, Michael. I thought it was easy to make connections with his in-game ideas and experiences. I loved Michael’s bulldog mentality while he was pitching. It took a lot of self confidence to go straight at the best hitters. The fact that a 12 year old believed he could get anybody out at anytime was quite impressive. Michael’s situation outside of baseball was unfortunate. He lost his father shortly after they had crossed the ocean between Cuba and Florida. I admired the attitude he and his brother had to stay together and sacrifice for each other.

Plot: Michael Arroyo was a 12 year old Cuban boy who lived in the Bronx. He, his father, and his brother had come from Cuba to start new in the United States. His family loved baseball. They lived a short distance from iconic Yankee Stadium. Michael had a gift very few people have: an electric fastball. To add to the great fastball, he could flat out pitch. There were very few kids in his league that could hit him. This fact brought into question Michael’s real age. Before his father died, they were unable to attain Michael’s birth certificate from the Cuban government. Michael had a dream to pitch at the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It appeared that dream was going to be cut short. Michael had to sit out a few games while they searched for his birth certificate. His team was still good enough to make the playoffs and give Michael more time. Eventually, Michael received help from his idol; a Cuban pitcher for the Yankees. His birth certificate is found and he is able to lead his team.

Characterization: Michael Arroyo was a very mature young man. The early death of his father caused him to grow up quicker than normal kids. Michael had an understanding of how things worked and the difficulties that were ahead of him. He did everything in his life with class. He was always very respectful of his opponents, teammates, and everyone else around him. Michael was an outstanding young man.

Setting: Heat took place in the Bronx in the early 2000s. Michael was a part of a little league system that recently had a boy too old for the league playing for one of the teams. This had a huge impact on Michael. Because of his size and ability, people questioned his age. Had it not been for the boy who cheated before him, Michael’s age may never have been brought into question.

Recommendation: I would recommend this book to middle school aged boys whom like baseball. They would be able to connect with Michael through his life and the sport.

The book "Heat" by Mike Lupica is a great book that has you on the edge of your seat throughout the entire book. Lupica tells the story of a young Cuban immagrant named Miguel or Michael Arroyo who not only is a kid of unbelievable skill for a kid his age, but also has a secret that would ruin his life if it went public. He is twelve years old and secretly lives alone with his seventeen year old brother Carlos ever since there dad died.
To prevent being seperated they must keep it a secret for about six months, which is when Carlos will turn eighteen, and he can legally become Michael's legal gaurdian. Believing that they can get by on Michael's unbelievable baseball skills when he gets older, Carlos takes multiple jobs so they can still afford shelter and food, while Michael is just supposed to focus on baseball.
Their plan began to work really well until the little league playoffs was approaching. He was always being asked by his Coach when his dad would return to help out with the team, and when news reporters started to take interest in him when he stopped a burglary by hitting the robber with a base ball from the pitchers mound. To make everything worse all the coaches really want to win the playoffs so they complain to the head of the league saying that with his size, strength, and all around baseball skills there is no possible way he is only twelve years old. With his birth certificate still in Cuba and after loosing touch with his extended family still in Cuba, he has no proof of his age. Now hes not allowed to play until the league gets a birth certificate, and the whole team is worried that they won't have a chance at winning without him.
Mike Lupica does a great job with description, word choice, and imagery but he uses some phrases you may not understand unless you follow baseball. "Heat" has something for everyone to enjoy, like sports, family moments, comedy, and when you first start to be attracted to someone like when he first meets Ellie a girl who has so much more in common with each other than they both realize. I would recommend this book to everyone but I think it may be hard for some peope to get into if they do not enjoy sports.

Personal Response:


I read the book Heat by Mike Lupica. I thought this was a great book, because I could relate to it very easily. The reason I could relate so easily was that the book was about baseball and I love baseball. Also I was stuck to reading it because Heat had some hardships in the book that made it even more interesting. Another reason I liked this book was because I love how Mike Lupica writes his books.


Plot:

The book Heat was about a kid named Michael Arroyo who was from Cuba. Michael was a die hard Yankees fan and always some how got into the games for free. His brother, dad, and he had just moved to New York from Cuba. His dad a little bit later in the book dies and the two boys have to live on their own. Michael’s brother works at two jobs while he plays on a club team in the area. When Michael becomes part of the team he was the best pitcher on the team. The only thing that they couldn’t prove was if he was young enough to play, because he had no idea what age he was and either did the coaches. When Michael's team gets to the playoffs, all of the other coaches in their division question it. While this was all going on,the foster program had came up because him and his brother had lived alone with no parent guidance. While he was at the foster home, he met a girl named Ellie little did he know it was the daughter of a Yankees player, El Grande, who was from Cuba also. Michael then meets El Grande and tells him about his family and how he was from Cuba too. Michael during this time was coaching his team with his coaches, because he obviously can’t play. Meanwhile, El Grande got connected somehow to Michael's family back at home and got Michael’s birth certificate. Michael was so relieved when he got to watch his team win the championship. Lastly, he got to throw the very first pitch at the next yankees game.


Characterization:


The main character in this book was Michael. Michael was from Cuba and came to the United states with his family. The story takes place around Michael’s real life. He was a great pitcher for his age and Mike Lupica does a great game painting an image in my head. El Grande was another character, he was a yankees star pitcher and was someone that Michael wants to look up to and be. Ellie, El Grande's daughter, was watching Michael one day and that's how it all started with them meeting each other.


Setting:


The story takes place in the 1990’s in New York in South Bronx. The story takes place on the baseball diamond or at Michael's house. This was important because he loved baseball and he would have never liked the Yankees if he didn’t live in New York. Mike Lupica also creates a good image in my head. When he talks about the baseball diamond it's very descriptive.


Recommendation:
I recommend this to any sports fan because it is about baseball. I also recommend this to any high schooler, because it really is a good lesson on life in high school. Lastly, I recommend it to baseball players because I was stuck in the book once I started reading it.

Personal Response
I really enjoyed reading this book. For having a love for a game like Michael, even though it is different, I could not imagine going through what Michael had to go through. For not being a fan of baseball, it still kept me very interested in the book.

Plot
Michael has fallen in love with baseball since the first day he stepped foot in the Bronx. He is also a big fan of the Yankees, especially El Grande. Michael becomes the star pitcher for the Clippers, a Little League team from the Bronx. It is the end of the season and the Clippers are heading into the playoffs trying to earn the right to play at Yankee Stadium for the Championship. That is when Michael and the Clippers get news that could end their season. People are questioning Michael's age, requiring him to provide a birth certificate. The problem for Michael is that his father passed away, so he is living with his brother. With the help of El Grande, the league commissioner, Manny, and Carlos they prove that he is not to old to play. Michael played the rest of the playoff games leading his team to the Little League World Series.

Characterization
Michael is a very good baseball player that is not cocky about anything he does. He is always there for his teammates, helping them on and off the field. His teammates rely on him to keep them together when games get tough. Carlos plays a big role in Michael's life, giving him the opportunity to play baseball. Carlos provides for Michael, working two jobs to allow them to have a comfortable living.

Impact of Setting
Michael lives in the Bronx and plays at a stadium right next to the Yankees. The main plot takes place during the mid 1990’s when El Grande was a big star for the Yankees. This helps him in a big way, by hearing the crowd cheer, seeing players around town, and becoming close with El Grande. It helps him be a better pitcher because his dream his to be playing inside of Yankee Stadium, rather than next to it.

Thematic Connection
The major theme in this book is to never give up. Michael faced hardships along the way but kept fighting to get back what he loved to do. Michael was trying to lead his team to the world series; something only kids can dream about. If he had just stopped fighting to find his birth certificate, he could have not played another baseball game in New York.

Recommendation
I would recommend this book to any middle school boy who is starting to play baseball. This shows if the hard work is put in, it will pay off in the end. It always shows that even when someone is good, he does not have to be cocky about it. Michael sets a good example for all to follow.

Heat By Mike Lupica

Heat is mostly a book about a young 12 year-old boy named Miguel or what he likes to go by is Michael Arroyo. He is a only a little leaguer but the arm of an 18 year old, and the coaches want a birth certificate. I think that heat is an outstanding book to read, just because it has an inspirational and powerful meaning behind it. I think this book could honestly be read at any age level as you wish, so go get a copy of it today

Heat by Mike Lupica was published in 2006 and is a baseball related book that deals with the pressures of dealing with on and off the field conflicts. The main character, Michael Arroyo, is a young baseball star who is recognized by the people around him daily. Michael’s past is sketchy in the sense that he has no birth or clear family records that could lead to an explanation of where he’s truly from. His father is only inserted in the story for a brief time due to his passing. At times, the people around Michael begin to question his age because of how elevated his talent is compared to the other players. Michael has to fight to prove himself, not without the help from his best friend Manny and brother Carlos. Both Manny and Carlos are the main family that Michael has in his life so Michael often follows them and reaches out for their advice when in need. This book is great for a young reader who enjoys a story about overcoming adversity to prove others who you truly are as a person. Mike Lupica is a well known author in the sports writing category. He has written numerous books about different sports that may suit readers better. Within this book, there is no offensive or vulgar language. I believe that this book is a great telling of how some kids may be judged accordingly based on their appearance, talent level or past when really all these kids desire is to be treated equally. Characters in the book are well developed and can be relatable to some readers. Some of Mike Lupica’s books seem to relate in the context of conflict within yourself and with others around you. As a reader, you have to remember that just because you’re more talented or different than other people, that doesn’t mean that you should be treated differently. That is what I believe to be the theme of the story as a whole.

What do you think it would be like to lose your father and have to hide it for months, while also being the center of attention? Well that is what Michael Arroyo had to experience in Heat by the New York Times bestselling author Mike Lupica. The story is set in NYC during the late 1900’s and is about a young boy named Michael. Michael has a predilection for baseball, and that is why he is one of the best pitchers in the little league. Michael and his brother Carlos traveled with their father from Cuba over a year ago, and have been living in the Bronx since. Mr. Arroyo died, so the boys have had to take care of themselves for months. Only a few people know about their situation, and no one will dare to tell anyone.
The genre is fictional, contemporary sports. Lupica shapes Michael to be the New York Yankees #1 fan, so any baseball fans can relate to this book. Lupica uses a variety of tones to get his point across. Overall, the story sounds optimistic and funny, like Michael’s team won a game in the playoffs without him. There are a few scenes when the tone changes to serious and deep, like when Michael had to lie about his father’s death to Mr. Gibbs. When I read this book, I felt sympathy for Michael multiple times throughout the story because I am around his age, and I cannot understand what it would feel like to have lost a father. The conflict is Carlos and Michael are living alone without a guardian, because their father passed away, and if children’s services were to find out, they could possibly get split up into foster care. All these facts are thrown on the reader in the very beginning of the book. The problem does not get resolved till much later in the book, with a really surprising ending. Michael faces many challenges when all he is doing is trying to live a normal American life, and pursuing his young baseball career.
The author does a good job with showing the character’s personality because he includes a lot of dialogue. Michael is a tall, slim, character, who is quiet around people he is not close to, but he feels free to say whatever he wants to the people closest to him. He is also very mature for his age, and a baseball pitcher who is physically incapable of walking a hitter. Carlos is 17, and being the older brother, can to somehow pay rent for their cheap apartment in the Bronx. He has two jobs, and does his best to act like an adult, to take his father’s place. Michael’s best friend Manny plays on the same baseball team as him, and he is a comedian. Manny also always has Michael’s back, and tries to help him in any way he can. Manny is one of the only people who knows Michael’s secret about his father, and he knows it because Michael trusts him with his life. Mr. Minaya is Michael’s coach is he is not mentioned very often throughout the story. When he is mentioned, he is caring, responsible, and trusts Michael in the most intense situations for their team. Mr. Gibbs works for children’s services and he would usually be mistaken as the antagonist, which he really isn’t because all he ever tries to do is helpout Michael.
Michael’s father passed away in May, and the brothers have been alone for a while. Carlos is a season away from turning 18, and when he turns 18, he can act as a legal guardian for Michael. Until then, the brothers have to stay under the radar so that nobody finds out about their secret. Michael is on the Clippers, which is a little league team on its way to Williamsport Pennsylvania for the championship. Michael, being the pitcher with the fastest fast ball in the league, is called out by other coaches. He cannot play without a birth certificate, which no one seems to have. Attention grows around Michael, as he does his best to support his team in the playoffs. Later in the story, he meets a girl named Ellie, who he develops a crush on, but she turns out to lie about her identity. Michael eventually finds out about her secret, which is (SPOILER) being the daughter of Michael’s idol. Michael has to find a way to cope with Ellie lying to him, and at the same time, trying to get back on the team his can no longer play for.
This book is really great for young baseball fans. There are many baseball games, described inning by inning, during the most intense situations, and anyone who understands baseball will love it. I do not recommend this book to non-athletic people because you need to understand the fundamentals of baseball to enjoy this book. This book has plaintive vibes around it because you find out in the beginning that Michael lost his father, but through Michael’s endeavors, there is a satisfying ending.