Review: The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown

Review:

My husband rowed in high school and college and still rows as an adult. I tried it for a few years and could definitely relate to the grueling schedule and workouts involved, even at a lower level of competition. My husband read the adult version of this book and really enjoyed it, so my 14 year old son and I read this YA version as one of his choice books for school.

The story begins with Joe Rantz as an old man telling his story to Daniel James Brown, who decides he would like to write a book about Joe.  Joe tells him the story shouldn't be about him, but needs to be about "the boat." Brown is a little confused because he believes Joe is talking about the rowing shell or the crew, but he is actually referring to something that is almost beyond definition. "The boat" was a shared experience when 9 men came together to achieve greatness.

Rowing had a long history in the Ivy league where wealthy young men enjoyed competing in this prestigious sport. Joe was not as fortunate. He was poor and worked hard to attend the University of Washington where he hoped to earn an engineering degree and improve his quality of life.  He had enough money to pay for his first year of college, but needed to make the rowing team if he wanted any chance of having enough money to finish his degree. The team ended up consisting of mostly young men like him. They were strong, hard working, and determined to work through the pain to achieve a goal.

The story isn't just about rowing. It teaches a number of life lessons while sharing some of the many struggles that took place during the depression. The book also explores what it was like in Nazi Germany before and after the 1936 Olympics. Hitler put on a remarkable show for the general public, but what was going on behind the scenes was deplorable and ultimately lead to the start of the second world war.

This is a very motivational story that people of all ages can learn from. It is about overcoming obstacles, perseverance, and teamwork. These working class boys with no prior experience were able to achieve greatness by putting their teammates ahead of themselves. “What mattered more than how hard a man rowed was how well everything he did in the boat harmonized with what the other fellows were doing. And a man couldn’t harmonize with his crewmates unless he opened his heart to them. He had to care about his crew.”