Snowboard Champ

by Matt Christopher

While his mother is working overseas, Matt Harper is living temporarily with his uncle in Dragon Valley, where he practices his snowboard technique and contends with a local bully.

Genres: Sports

160 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2004

About the author

Matt Christopher is the writer young readers turn to when they're looking for fast-paced, action-packed sports novels. He is the best-selling author of more than one hundred sports books for young readers.

Matt Christopher is America's bestselling sports writer for children, with more than 100 books and sales approaching six million copies. In 1992, Matt Christopher talked about being a children's book author.

"I became interested in writing when I was 14, a freshman in high school. I was selling magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post, Country Gentleman, and Liberty, and I would read the stories, particularly the adventure and mystery stories, and think how wonderful it would be to be able to write stories and make a living at it. I also read detective, horror, aviation, and sports stories and decided I would try writing them myself.

Determined to sell, I wrote a detective story a week for 40 weeks, finding the time to marry, work, and play baseball and basketball before I sold my first story in 1941, "The Missing Finger Points," for $50 to Detective Story magazine.

After writing and selling children's sports stories to magazines, I decided to write a baseball book for children. I was living in Syracuse, New York at the time, working at General Electric. I spoke about my idea to the branch librarian. She was immediately interested and told me that they needed sports stories badly. So I came up with my first children's book, The Lucky Baseball Bat. I submitted it to Little, Brown, and the book was published in 1954.

I'm sure that playing sandlot baseball and then semiprofessional baseball with a Class C club in the Canadian-American League influenced my writing. I had my own personal experiences, and I saw how other players reacted to plays, to teammates' and fans' remarks and innuendoes, to managers' orders, etc. All these had a great influence on my writing. My love of the game helped a lot, too, of course.

Out of all the books I've written, my favorite is The Kid Who Only Hit Homers. It's a fantasy, but the main character in it could be real. There are a lot of boys who would love to play baseball but, for some reason, cannot. The only difference between a real-life boy and Sylvester Coddmyer III is the appearance of a character named George Baruth, whom only Sylvester can see and who helps Sylvester become a good ballplayer.

I've written many short stories and books for both children and adults, and find that writing for children is really my niche. Being the eldest of nine children (seven boys and two girls), I've lived through a lot of problems many children live through, and I find these problems excellent examples to include in my books.

Sports have made it possible for me to meet many people with all sorts of life stories, on and off the field, and these are grist for this writer's mill. I'm far beyond playing age now, but I manage to go to both kids' and adult games just to keep up with them, and keep them fresh in my mind.Very few things make me happier than receiving fan letters from boys and girls who write that they had never cared for reading until they started to read my books. That is just about the ultimate in writing for children. I would never trade it for another profession."

Matt Christopher died on September 27, 1997. His legacy is now being carried on by his sons, Duane and Dale Christopher.

Reviews

[Kokoro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Me decidí por esta novella debido a que involucre el snowboarding, deporte que no practico pero desde que lo conocí me ha gustado y ojala algún día pueda estar sobre una tabla, los párrafos dedicados a ello son interesantes más no sé si los nombres de las técnicas sean esas o se las inventó el autor.

El ritmo es muy ágil y la historia entretenida del tipo bildungsroman, pero no muy en profundidad debido al número de páginas y al tipo de público al cual va dirigido, contradictoriamente. Por alguna razón me recordó estar leyendo un manga. Ah, per esperen, de vez en cuando entre la narración se intercala una ensoñación de Matt sobre ser un tipo de superhéroe que me parece desentona con el ritmo y francamente el autor debió ahorrárselo.

Empero, tengo ciertos problemas con el protagonista, Matt, y algún que otro secundario. Pero, tal vez sea cosa mia pues al ser décadas mayor que ellos tengo otra mentalidad, sin embargo, no recuerdo haberme preocupado por tales cosas en su día, dígase; estar en el grupo más popular (aunque sea un grupo chismoso/cotilla, se burlen de otros, mentirosos y el líder sea un acosador), ser popular, gustarme alguien por su apariencia. Eso sí, menos mal al final se arreglan dichas situaciones.

Puedo tener un tío como el de Matt? Clayton, fue el personaje que más me gusto.

“Why would someone go so far as to hurt somebody that never hurt him?” Matt (pensando).

[David Erkale · Rating 5 out of 5]

Matt Christopher's Snowboard Champ takes the cake for one of the best books he's written. Matt (named after the author, it seems) is moving over to Dragon Valley with his uncle as a result of his mom's job abroad, and relearns his snowboarding with ease. From the beginning, he's no fan of the community but learns to get along-well, at least later on. Matt has to deal with the self-centred Riley as he tries to ruin Matt's name, both in school and on the internet chatroom. The only person who appears to get along with Matt at the start is Spengler, who has a smoking addiction before later in the book claiming to quit. While our main character has problems in Dragon Valley Middle School, he finally gets his name cleared and is accepted as one of them, with Riley moving to another school in the process. Great read, and I like the stories Matt made up in his mind as Snowboard Champ!

[Random Scholar · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is obviously a sports themed story, but it is more than that. Matt comes from Chicago to stay in a small town for a year while his mom is working overseas. Many kids think he is in a gang and has had trouble with the law. A local bully Riley is using Matt's history of being from Chicago to accuse him of gang affiliation because Matt is talented at snowboarding and he's mad that Melissa likes Matt (and no longer him). In the process of trying to adjust to a new school and a new town, Matt meets numerous other students who have also been bullied by Riley. I think this book would be ideal for students grades 2-3 for its lexile level. It can also be used to engage students into a conversation about exclusion.

[Seito]

Snowboard is one of the youngest sports in this world. This book will explain what these tricks are and how they're done. It'll tell you where snowboarding came from and where it's going. And you'll meet some of the most colorful characters you'll find in any sport.

[LBullerman]

5 star

[Hunter H · Rating 4 out of 5]

Snowboard Champ by Matt Christopher contains a boy that has to overcome a lot of things. Matt Harper's mom works for the government and had to go on a top secret mission. So Matt has to go live with his uncle and switch schools. He has to go against the schools top snowboarder in order to get respect for the schoolmates. However, the boy the he has to snowboard against is spreading many rumors and getting people to hate him. Read to see what goes down!

This book was extremely creative and I really like the way it was made. It was a good book and would be even better with a series.

I recommend this book to everyone that wants a good book. 4/5 stars!

[Patrick Hulick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book, wow i really enjoyed it. I honestly thought it was prety good. It uses real life conflicts and problems to show that the worste things can happen to people who don't diserve it, but in the end if you roll with the punches you'll be the strongest.

[Chance · Rating 3 out of 5]

it is cool it has an interesting story line he just came to his new town so far and is learning to become a better snowboarder from his uncle and is up against some kid who doesn't like him and he is trying to impress this girl

[Jawan]

Is there a sequel?

[10-11 Trip · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book I find exiting because at the end you have no idea wats gonna happen. I would tell you but you have to read it yourself.

[Dylan Schwartz]

i think its a good book and if u like sports i recomend it

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

This a great book about a kid that moves to Dragon Valley from Chicago and starts snowboarding but also has trouble at school. I strongly recommend this book.