g.neri_Chess Rumble

In Marcus's world, battles are fought everyday -- on the street, at home, and in school. Angered by his sister's death and his father's absence, and pushed to the brink by a bullying classmate, Marcus fights back with his fists.

One punch away from being kicked out of school and his home, Marcus encounters CM, an unlikely chess master who challenges him to fight his battles on the chess board. Now, he is in for the match of his life as he struggles to regain control.

Inspired by inner-city school chess enrichment programs, Chess Rumble explores the ways this strategic game empowers young people with the skills they need to anticipate their moves through the game of life.

Reading and Interest Level: Grades 4 through 8
Themes: chess, family, school, bullying, conflict resolution, coping with death, mentors, urban life, African American interest

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Reviews and Awards

“‘In my ’hood, battles is fought every day,’ quips Marcus, an angry middle schooler on the brink of big trouble. His words, rife with frustration, tumble across page after page in free-flowing verse as he paints a picture of his quickly fading innocence. In the short time since his sister’s death, memories of eating ice cream and giggling have been replaced by the bleak reality of a persistent bully, fist fights, and an absent dad. After begrudgingly meeting CM, Chess Master, the school’s ‘bad dude’ chess club adviser, an extended ‘battle’ metaphor unfolds, concluding as Marcus takes responsibility for his own actions and moves his fighting off the street and onto the chessboard.

Chess Rumble works, and works well. Neri expertly captures Marcus’s voice and delicately teases out his alternating vulnerability and rage. The cadence and emotion of the verse are masterfully echoed through Watson’s expressive acrylic illustrations. Blacks, whites, and grays echo the concrete world of Marcus’s urban home and, even more so, his despairing mood. Scattered chess pieces evoke the crescendo of the boy’s temper. The closing scene tenderly catches tough-guy Marcus in a smile as he pounds fists with CM before sitting down to do battle, a stark contrast to his opening image, one dominated entirely by his fist. This book will become a standby pick for reluctant readers, who will be pulled in before they know it by the story’s quick pace and the authenticity of Marcus’s voice and experience.” —SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL

“In this strong debut, Marcus’ authentic voice narrates in potent, free-verse poetry. With minimal, direct words, Neri makes clear, without overstating, how Marcus’ sense of being misunderstood amplifies his frustrations and how, through chess, he learns to take responsibility for his feelings and actions. Watson effectively echoes each scene’s mood in small gray-tone paintings that employ dramatic shading. A deeply shadowed portrait of Marcus’ absent dad is particularly moving. Readers of all backgrounds will find themselves here, but this will have particular appeal among reluctant readers and young, inner-city teens.” —BOOKLIST

“‘Battles is fought every day’ in 11-year-old Marcus’s ’hood. Not only has his father abandoned the family, but his sister has recently died, leaving him frustrated, angry and ready to fight—even with his worried, red-eyed mother and his younger twin brothers. Just as his volatility starts to get him into real trouble, Marcus meets a Yoda-like chess master in the school library who challenges him to a game of chess. At first, Marcus’s ‘opening move’ is to hurl the chessboard groundward, but in time, he learns to master the game—and his temper. Marcus tells his story in street slang, in a conversational first-person voice. . .The acrylic black-and-white illustrations are particularly effective at capturing natural expressions and the concrete-gray inner-cityscape.”
— KIRKUS REVIEWS

“Chess Rumble provides a gripping and moving account of an eleven-year old boy’s struggles with living in poverty in a single-parent household after the death of his sister. Based on real inner-city enrichment programs that teach kids how to play chess, this book shows how a unique social program can help children to develop new skills, meet new people, and begin to overcome disadvantaged economic circumstances. This fast-paced and intriguing book is bound to hold the attention of most young readers as they get a good dose of important lessons in economics, sociology, and social policy.”
— Rutgers University Project on Economics and Children

“The best part of this short, illustrated, verse novel is the voice of the main character's first person narration. As I read, I could actually hear Marcus's voice saying the words in my head. . . . Chess Rumble is touching and real.” — Miss Erin

G. Neri's CHESS RUMBLE is appealing to reluctant readers, especially boys, on a number of levels. Neri nails the voice of a boy growing up in the inner city in a way that's reminiscent of Walter Dean Myers. Neri's main character, Marcus, is a young man dealing with family troubles and fights at school, until he meets a powerful mentor and learns to fight his battles on a chessboard instead. This novella in verse is full of language that's vivid and accessible, and Jesse Joshua Watson's illustrations in shades of black, brown, and gray help to set the mood. This one has serious kid-appeal -- not just for the kids who already love to read but for those who don't often find books on the library shelves that seem to be written for them. This one is. —Kate's Book Blog

“Jesse Joshua Watson has created captivating and realistic images that propel Chess Rumble's pages to come alive.” — BoysRead.org

“I wish there were books like this when I was a kid. And I gotta give G. Neri his props for so successfully capturing the voice of a troubled 11-year-old, African American male from the hood. Marcus’ language is street, conversational and real. He talks just like I did at 11-years-old, and often still do. Watson’s acrylic illustrations are strong and bold, full of emotion, and have a graphic art quality about them.”
—The Brown Bookshelf

"I love genre benders, and this gripping, dark look at an urban African-American kid's anger and confusion defies pigeonholing.
The 11-year-old narrator, who goes by Hulk or Fattie, depending on whether you're friend or foe, wields free verse like a blunt stick, now tapping out a rhythm, now beating us freely with rapid images, impressions and raw action from his damaged life. This is one kid on the edge, and the abyss is a single misstep away. When an exasperated teacher sends him to the library, he encounters the mysterious CM, a tattooed warrior who wields a mean chess board. When he challenges Hulk to beat him, we sense a temblor building beneath the boy's fragile fault lines.

Where it leads and how we get there is for you to discover. It reads quickly, but this is one story that lingers long after the covers are closed. Rating: **** (four stars) — BookBuds.com

A remarkable, upbeat young adult treatise on anger and loss, Neri’s work treads carefully into a child’s heart to locate and eradicate the roots of violence. The text describes in words and lifelike poses the pressures of school, street, and home on a troubled fatherless boy. Carefully paced with realistic confrontations, the story concludes with inductive logic that illuminates for the protagonist his need for self-control.

Neri’s view of urban life for broken families accommodates both individual situations and generalized social commentary on racism and teen belligerence. Both the mother and the rescuer, ex-con CM, survive personal trauma with hearts intact and a will to love an unlovable scrapper. The protagonist profits from working out for himself the down side of striking out at scapegoats who bear no fault for causing anguish. The boy and his siblings surmise that the death of their sister from heart disease initiated blind rage and family breakdown. Chess becomes the arbitrary battleground that furthers healing and the rebuilding of self-esteem. Highly recommended for a gift book and for public, elementary, middle school, and high school libraries and on reading lists for coursework in creative writing, education, illustration, linguistics, psychology, religion, and social services. —Counterpoise

G. Neri’s free-verse novella, richly illustrated by Jesse Joshua Watson, takes us into the young man’s world of hurt, pain – and ultimately of promise. Neri’s storytelling is close and warm. He has a great ear for dialogue, and he knows how people can say and not-say something with the very same words. His characters are very real. Watson captures the emotions of each page, and pours them into his art work. The author says he writes for “reluctant readers” (targeting grades 4 through 8) with the hope that his stories will “open minds to reading.” Average and avid readers – chess players and non-players alike – will enjoys Chess Rumble, as well. While everyone’s minds are “open” they will have much to learn, too, from Neri, CM, and even Marcus. —Chessville

I was just putting the finishing touches on my first book, Yummy, when I talked to my editor Jennifer Fox about future projects. She mentioned that she had been wanting to do a book about the urban chess scene for a few years, but hadn't found the right people for it. So she asked me if that might be something I'd like to explore.

She gave no parameters for it. It could be a picture book or a YA novel. She had a few articles about chess programs in the schools she gave me, but had no directives about what the story had to be. I was immediately interested, not because I knew anything about chess (not much anyways), but because I wanted to return the favor of having her pick me out of the slush pile. And I wanted another book published.

What happened though, took me by surprise. The end result is nothing like I could have imagined-- a completely organic story that grew entirely out of a freeflowing process of discovery. At first, I was trying to write a picture book. But I found myself writing two stories: one about a tough chess mentor and the other about a troubled teen who was always getting into fights.

At some point, I realized the two stories could work together and I made two columns, lining up the stories side by side. Then I started swapping in paragraphs from one story to the other until, miraculously, the two merged seemlessly. I ended up keeping the first column, thus it became a long free-verse looking poem, something I had not really done before.

From there it grew in leaps and bounds as I discovered the wonderful possibilities of this form. We had no guide for this format, but we looked at The Way a Door Closes and could see how it might come together in the end. The slang became an issue at one point, but, spurred on by Coe Booth's Tyrell, we went for it and it finally gelled. When Jesse Joshua Watson joined the team, it all felt right.