The Berlin Boxing Club

The Berlin Boxing Club is a book by Sydney Taylor about a boy in World War 2 who gets bullied in school and gets the opportunity to start taking boxing lessons from a famous boxer, who happens to be a family friend, in order to get stronger and stand up to his bullies who call themselves the wolf gang. At the same time, his family is having a rough time due to their Jewish heritage, finding money and selling their paintings, as well as being ridiculed by police and townspeople. Karl’s boxing career starts to sail, but drastic events lead to him needing to protect and provide for his mother and younger sister. This book is what happens over a span of 5 years in Karl Stern’s life, which keeps getting harder and harder testing him. The main characters in this book are Karl Stern, Max Schmelling, Hildy Stern, and Karl’s mother and Father.
In the book, I learned how cruel people can be to one another about something that you can’t control. Something as simple as what a person believes in can be torn to shreds in a matter of seconds due to bullying and harassment. Another thing that I took away from this book is when times are tough, you shouldn’t back down. Karl is faced with many challenges in this book. From being ridiculed and tormented for being a Jew, to him having to take care of his family, Karl stepped up every time by not backing down or just flat out giving up. The last thing that I learned due to this book was that you can change whenever you want and all you have to do is believe in yourself and have a positive mindset towards what you want to change and/do.
I think the author's main point in writing this book was to show how much a person can go through and still have the courage to face their problems. I love this book. I’m not much of a reading type person and I honestly never have been but I just love in this book and how Karl changes himself and steps up to his bullies and the challenges he’s faced with. I would recommend this book to someone who is interested in learning about the lives of Jewish people during the war and how they were affected and also people seeking motivation to make themselves better.