Cheap Heaven Is a Playground (Book) (Rick Telander) Price

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Customer Reviews of Heaven Is a Playground

An astounding book!
Rick Telander is an incredibly gifted writer - with Sports Illustrated (senior writer) last I knew, and one of the "guys" on TV on the Chicago WGN "Sports Writers" show. This is the show portrayed in Saturday Night Live of the guys that sit around drinking beer smoking cigars and talking about Mike Ditka and Da Bulls. Anyway, this book was Rick's big break as a writer. He captures the heart of basketball for teenage boys. The focus of course is the inner city black kids. I have two teenaged boys (white, small town Midwest USA) who have read it and saw themselves in it, too. Transcends race/region/city-vs-country boy.

Captures above all what it is to be young, hopeful, and scared. Not a sports book, but a book about young men facing life who love sports.

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The "Mother" to all subsequent inner-city hoop stories...
One of the best books I've ever read! I spent some time in Brooklyn playing 'ball in the early 80's and must admit that this book was my guideline. Believe me, this is how inner-city basketball was in the 70's - 80's timeframe and R. Telander is to be highly commended for getting it right. I've probably read this 40 times since it came out and can still not put it down. I would just die for a follow-up story of what happened to all these people (from Fly Williams to Roy Hill)...Highest recommendation!

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Guide through Brooklyn inner city hoops
Rick Telander is visiting Brooklyn to write a magazine article and locate all star legend Fly Williams. He plans to stay in Brooklyn for a few days, but ends up staying a whole summer. Brooklyn is a hard core place to play basketball, expecially street ball in the poverty stricken, crime filled parks of Brooklyn. Seventy percent of the boys are African American and are there because basketball is their life and that's what they're depending on to get them somewhere in life. Telander lets the kids speak for themselves in this book. It's full of real life situations and tends to be a little vulgar.
I love basketball so that's one reason this book was appealing to me, but it also grabbed my attention with the detail. The detail in all their conversations is remarkable.
A reader of this book would have to be open minded about all subjects or like basketball. This book is very intense, the players tend to get a little veral at times, but it's still a great book. I recommend this book for ages 15 and up. This is a phenomenal book, and must be read by all those lovers of basketball.