Deuker, Carl 1950-

Personal

Born August 26, 1950, in San Francisco, CA; son of John and Marie Deuker; married Anne Mitchell (a teacher), 1978; children: Marian. Education: University of California at Berkeley, B.A., 1972; University of Washington, M.A., 1974; University of California at Los Angeles, teaching certificate, 1976. Politics: Democrat.

Addresses

Home—Seattle, WA. E-mail—[email protected].

Career

Writer and educator. Saint Luke School, Seattle, WA, teacher, 1977-90; Northshore School District, Bothell, WA, teacher, 1991—. Seattle Sun (daily newspaper), film and book critic, 1980-85.

Member

Authors Guild, Authors League of America, Phi Beta Kappa.

Awards, Honors

South Carolina Young Adult Book Award, 1992, for On the Devil's Court; Heart of a Champion, On the Devil's Court, and Painting the Black were all named to American Library Association (ALA) Best Books for Young Adults list; Nebraska Golden Sower Award, and Tennessee Volunteer State Book Award, both 1996, Pennsylvania Young Readers' Choice Award, 1997, and ALA Best Book for Reluctant Readers citation, all for Heart of a Champion; New York Library Books for the Teen Age citation and Young Adult Book of the Year Award from Texas, both 1997, both for Painting the Black; Nebraska Golden Sower Award, 2003, for Night Hoops; Distinguish Achievement Award for Fiction, Association of Educational Publishers, 2007, for story "The Sun and the Clouds and the Water."

Writings

On the Devil's Court, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1988.

Heart of a Champion, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1993.

Painting the Black, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1997.

Night Hoops, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2000.

High Heat, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2003.

Runner, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2005.

Gym Candy, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2007.

Contributor of short stories to Boys' Life; fiction anthologized in Ultimate Sports, edited by Donald Gallo.

Sidelights

Carl Deuker is the author of such highly regarded sports novels as On the Devil's Court, Night Hoops, and Gym Candy. His characters are high school athletes with differing abilities, ambitions, and psychological baggage, but their stories all unfold within the sports that they choose to play. Far from being just a hinge upon which to hang a plot, sports in Deuker's novels serve as a central metaphor for the complicated process of growing up. As a contributor to the St. James Guide to Young-Adult Writers put it, "Deuker's ability to move beyond mechanical discussions of various sports and provide insight into the universal struggles of young adults have deservedly earned him the reputation as one of the most promising contemporary writers of sports fiction."

Deuker was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay area. His father died when he was three years old, and to this day he is deeply conscious of the loss and deeply interested in father-son relationships. Deuker once told SATA that he developed an early interest in writing: "I think I was on my way to becoming a writer with the imaginary games I played alone between the ages of eight and twelve. For hour after hour, the dart board in my garage was the strike zone, and I was Juan Marichal baffling the Dodgers. Or the pillow on the sofa was the basketball hoop, the walnut was the basketball, and I was Rick Barry, draining twenty-footers to beat the Lakers. I played football games with marbles, baseball games with clothespins, golf with hula hoops. But really I played those games—literally thousands of them—in my mind." Deuker's mother encouraged her son to have an active imagination, and he wrote poetry and short stories while still in high school.

In college at the University of California at Berkeley, Deuker continued to write, placing some of his work in campus and underground magazines. "I was an English major," he told Authors and Artists for Young Adults (AAYA), "took lots of writing classes, was never the best writer in class, but persisted with writing anyway." After earning a master's degree, Deuker gravitated into journalism but finally decided to earn a teaching certificate. He has been a middle-school teacher since 1977, writing his books at night and in the summers.

Although Deuker's books are set in high school, he actually writes for the middle-school audience. "My books are ways for them to peek ahead in their lives and perhaps be a little prepared for what might be coming," he remarked to AAYA. Deuker also commented that he thoroughly enjoys his work as a teacher and draws inspiration from it. "I have no plans to go full time [as a writer]," he admitted. "I don't think I could handle the pressure of writing for a livelihood."

In Deuker's first book, On the Devil's Court, Joe Faust, a high school student with a nearly obsessive interest in basketball, moves with his family from the East Coast to the West. Believing that the move will further his basketball career, Joe convinces his parents to let him attend a large public school with a strong sports program. However, the teen's attendance at a drunken party leads to a run-in with police, after which his parents insist that he enroll at a small private school. One evening in the gym, an angry Joe, who has just been demoted to the junior varsity, hits every shot he takes. Inspired by his recent reading of Christopher Marlowe's Dr. Faustus, Joe offers himself to the Devil in exchange for continued prowess and a perfect season. No sooner is the promise made than Joe begins to star on the varsity team, leading his school to the state finals. With each victory, Joe becomes increasingly anxious about his fate. Has he really sold himself to the Devil? In light of his success, Joe wonders if his father's untimely heart attack is not actually an early payment. Not until Joe's team wins without him does he realize that the season belongs to his team, and that he has made a bargain with no one but himself.

In a School Library Journal review, Gerry Larson called On the Devil's Court a "fine addition to sports fiction," and praised Deuker's engaging mixture of suspense, family drama, and athletic competition. A Publishers Weekly reviewer considered Deuker's characters well-rounded and deemed the book a "vivid contemporary morality play." Horn Book reviewer Nancy Vasilakis asserted that young readers will enjoy both the story and Joe's ability to deal squarely with his parents by the book's end, "whether or not they fully comprehend what developmental steps were taken to achieve this measure of independence."

In Heart of a Champion, Deuker uses baseball to examine the lives of two adolescent boys. Seth has yet to come to terms with his father's death when he meets Jimmy, a budding young baseball star. Inspired by Jimmy's intense pursuit of the game, Seth begins playing baseball, and the competitive nature of the game increases his confidence in other aspects of his life. Seth's grades improve, and, with his mother's help, he begins to address his father's death. Behind their shared success in baseball, however, is Jimmy's father, an alcoholic who drives his son toward perfection on the diamond. His influence proves tragic when Jimmy, a high school baseball star, dies in an alcohol-related traffic accident. Seth must then deal with the loss of his closest friend, as well as the complexity of the father-son relationship that foreshadowed Jimmy's death.

In a review of Heart of a Champion for School Library Journal, Jack Forman speculated that the "well-paced

novel will involve many readers," and a Horn Book reviewer called the book a "sensitive, moving portrait of adolescence combined with dramatic sports action." Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books reviewer Betsy Hearne praised the detailed relationship between the boys, but was more struck by the book's realistic portrayal of the "balance between talent and discipline."

Painting the Black once again explores the destructive behavior of a star high school athlete. Josh Daniels is a success in two sports: football and baseball. His exploits on the field are so spectacular that both fellow students and the school administration are tempted to overlook his temperamental outbursts and cruelty to female students. Recruited to serve as a catcher for Josh's pitching, Ryan Ward forms a strong friendship with the athlete and through it finds the courage to regain his own footing as a baseball player. Together the two teens craft a potential championship season for their baseball team, but their aspirations are put to the test when Ryan foils Josh's attempts to assault Monica Robey, an academic star. Ryan faces a difficult choice: Will he, too, overlook Josh's antisocial behavior, or will he report the incident and put an end to his team's championship hopes?

Deuker told AAYA that Painting the Black was based on a real incident in which a star athlete acted inappropriately toward a classmate. Critics of the book praised its realistic detailing of the "double standard" that sometimes surrounds sports heroes. Some reviewers also liked the way Deuker filters his story through Ryan's perspective, noting that the crux of the conflict lies in Ryan's epic battle with his own conscience. Maeve Visser Knoth, writing in Horn Book, described Painting the Black as a "readable novel with much to say about human potential and the difference between internal and external strength." Candace Smith in Booklist suggested that Ryan's "moral courage … will linger when the reading is done."

Deuker often writes about the one-on-one bonding that young men can experience when they play sports together. In Night Hoops, Nick Abbott takes solace in basketball when his parents divorce, but he finds that his emotions spill onto the court and affect his game. It is only when Nick begins to play one-on-one with the grim and antisocial Trent Dawson that he begins to learn how to fit into a team—and how to break down the barriers between himself and others. "This is an excellent novel … authentic throughout," observed Todd Morning in School Library Journal. Morning added that Deuker "perfectly captures the swirl of ideas in the adolescent mind," while a Publishers Weekly reviewer called Night Hoops "an honest depiction of the contemporary high-school sports scene."

In High Heat, Shane Hunter's life is shaken at its roots when his father, facing money-laundering charges, suddenly commits suicide. Shane, who has been raised in a life of luxury that includes private schools and a lovely

home, must move with his family into subsidized housing, and he begins to fall apart in the new environment. Help comes in the form of his new public school's baseball coach, who convinces Shane to try out for the team. As a relief pitcher, Shane finally finds himself again, but he faces a new crisis when he injures an opponent from his former school. Fearful that he has lost his pitching ability and his grip on life in general, Shane forms a friendship with the player he struck. Together they try to make sense of what has happened and how it will affect their futures.

According to John Peters in a review for Booklist, High Heat contains "enough taut sports action … to satisfy the most avid fan." Writing for School Library Journal, Todd Morning noted that the story "delivers baseball action along with a rich psychological portrait," and a Publishers Weekly critic felt that, although Deuker's story builds on a dark premise, "the arc of redemption reminds readers that love conquers all—as does the pursuit of personal excellence."

Runner concerns Chance Taylor, a high school senior who lives with his father, an alcoholic Gulf War veteran, on a dilapidated sailboat in Seattle's Puget Sound. Desperate to pay the moorage fees, Chance, a loner who only finds solace in the long runs he takes along the Seattle waterfront, accepts a job from a marina employee: retrieving packages that are stashed on his running route. Though Chance at first suspects he is involved with drug smugglers, the teenager becomes increasingly worried that the packages are linked to a terrorist plot, and he must turn to his father for help. Writing in Booklist, Gillian Engberg praised the novel's "suspenseful action," and Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy contributor Cynthia Kiefer observed that Runner "builds to a compelling ending that will keep readers turning pages." Reviewers also complimented Deuker's portrayal of Chance; Peter D. Sieruta in Horn Book called the protagonist "an essentially good kid caught up in some questionable activities," and Kiefer remarked that the author "skillfully depicts how poverty can affect a teen who would otherwise have everything going for him."

Deuker tackles the subject of steroids in Gym Candy, "a solid sports tale with a valuable message about the dangers of addiction," as Paula Rohrlick wrote in Kliatt. "At my daughter's high school, the mantra for athletes

was ‘bigger, faster, stronger,’ Deuker stated on his home page. "I'm very aware that there is only so far that natural ability can take a person. Steroid use is the dark side of ‘You can be whatever you set out to be.’" Gym Candy centers on Mick Johnson, a talented high school football player who hopes to play professionally, just like his father. After Mick fails to score in the final moments of his first big game, however, he becomes determined to improve his performance by any means, including the use of steroids, or "gym candy." When a friend discovers Mick's secret, violence ensues. "Deuker skillfully complements a sobering message with plenty of exciting on-field action and locker-room drama," noted Booklist critic Jennifer Hubert, and Emily Wilkinson, writing in the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy stated that the author "presents a realistic portrait of a young man who has good intentions and solid talent but who weakens under intense pressure. He also does an admirable job of making the dangers and side effects of steroids tangible. Deuker's powerful description and attention to detail are the payoff for research into the underground world of steroid use and distribution."

Deuker is often asked by his readers if he writes sports novels for young adults because he was an outstanding athlete. Nothing could be further from the truth, he acknowledged on his home page. "I was too slow and too short for basketball; I was too small for football, a little too chicken to hang in there against the best fastballs. So, by my senior year the only sport I was still playing was golf." Deuker told AAYA that he was inspired to write sports novels by the fact that the ones he read as a boy were rarely about sports at all. "Often I'd put the book down and turn to something else, usually historical fiction with a lot of war in it. Those books delivered what they promised. As a writer of sports fiction, I decided early on to make sure I delivered on the promise—that sports be front and center. But I also wanted to make sure that each book gave a little bit more."

Biographical and Critical Sources

BOOKS

Authors and Artists for Young Adults, Volume 26, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1999.

St. James Guide to Young-Adult Writers, 2nd edition, St. James (Detroit, MI), 1999.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, June 1, 1997, Candace Smith, review of Painting the Black; May 1, 2000, Frances Bradburn, review of Night Hoops, p. 1658; August, 2003, John Peters, review of High Heat, p. 1982; June 1, 2005, Gillian Engberg, review of Runner, p. 1782; September 1, 2007, Jennifer Hubert, review of Gym Candy, p. 131.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, September, 1993, Betsy Hearne, review of Heart of a Champion, p. 7.

Horn Book, March-April, 1989, Nancy Vasilakis, review of On the Devil's Court, p. 216; May-June, 1993, review of Heart of a Champion, p. 337; May-June, 1997, Maeve Visser Knoth, review of Painting the Black, p. 317; May, 2000, review of Night Hoops, p. 312; May-June, 2005, Peter D. Sieruta, review of Runner, p. 322; September-October, 2007, review of Gym Candy, p. 571.

Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, February, 2006, Cynthia Kiefer, review of Runner, p. 450; May, 2008, Emily Wilkinson, review of Gym Candy, p. 692.

Kirkus Reviews, May 15, 1993, review of Heart of a Champion.

Kliatt, September, 2007, Paula Rohrlick, review of Gym Candy, p. 10.

Publishers Weekly, November 11, 1988, review of On the Devil's Court, p. 60; April 10, 2000, review of Night Hoops, p. 99; May 19, 2003, review of High Heat, p. 75.

School Library Journal, January, 1989, Gerry Larson, review of On the Devil's Court, p. 92; June, 1993, Jack Forman, review of Heart of a Champion, p. 126; May, 1997, Todd Morning, review of Painting the Black; May, 2000, Todd Morning, review of Night Hoops, p. 171; July, 2003, Todd Morning, review of High Heat, p. 128; June, 2005, Ginny Gustin, review of Runner, p. 154.

Voice of Youth Advocates, April, 1989, Doris Losey, review of On the Devil's Court, p. 27; August, 1997, Susan Dunn, review of Painting the Black, p. 182.

ONLINE

Carl Deuker Home Page,http://members.authorsguild.net/carldeuker (December 15, 2008).

Houghton Mifflin Web site,http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/ (December 15, 2008), "A Conversation with the Author."

DEUKER, Carl 1950-

Personal

Born August 26, 1950, in San Francisco, CA; son of John and Marie (maiden name, Milligan) Deuker; married Anne Mitchell (a teacher), 1978; children: Marian. Education: University of California at Berkeley, B.A., 1972; University of Washington, M.A., 1974; University of California at Los Angeles, teaching certificate, 1976. Politics: Democrat.

Addresses

Home —2827 Northwest 62nd St., Seattle, WA 98107. E-mail —[email protected].

Career

Saint Luke School, Seattle, WA, teacher, 1977-90; Northshore School District, Bothell, WA, teacher, 1991—. Seattle Sun (daily newspaper), film and book critic, 1980-85.

Member

Authors Guild, Authors League of America, Phi Beta Kappa.

Awards, Honors

South Carolina Young Adult Book Award, 1992, for On the Devil's Court; Heart of a Champion, On the Devil's Court, and Panting the Black were all named to ALA Best Books for Young Adults list; Nebraska Golden Sower Award and Tennessee Volunteer State Book Award, 1996, Pennsylvania Young Readers' Choice Award, 1997, and ALA Best Book for Reluctant Readers citation, all for Heart of a Champion; New York Library Books for the Teen Age citation and Young Adult Book of the Year Award from Texas, both 1997, both for Painting the Black; Nebraska Golden Sower Award, 2003, for Night Hoops.

Writings

On the Devil's Court, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1988.

Heart of a Champion, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1993.

Painting the Black, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1997.

Night Hoops, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2000.

High Heat, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2003.

Contributor of short story, "If You Can't Be Lucky," to Ultimate Sports, edited by Donald Gallo.

Sidelights

Carl Deuker once told SATA that he is often asked by his readers if he writes sports novels for young adults because he was an outstanding athlete. "The answer

is—not really," he confessed. "As a high school student, I made a few teams, but I did more sitting on the bench than playing. In college I played on intramural teams. But it wasn't those experiences that laid the groundwork for my becoming a writer.

"Instead I think I was on my way to becoming a writer with the imaginary games I played alone between the ages of eight and twelve. For hour after hour, the dart board in my garage was the strike zone, and I was Juan Marichal baffling the Dodgers. Or the pillow on the sofa was the basketball hoop, the walnut was the basketball, and I was Rick Barry, draining twenty-footers to beat the Lakers. I played football games with marbles, baseball games with clothespins, golf with hula hoops. But really I played those games—literally thousands of them—in my mind."

Deuker still plays games in his mind, but now he does so in the context of sports novels. His characters are high school athletes with differing abilities, ambitions, and psychological baggage, but their stories all unfold within the sports that they choose to play. Far from being just a hinge upon which to hang a plot, sports in Deuker's novels serve as a central metaphor for the complicated process of growing up. As a contributor to the St. James Guide to Young Adult Writers put it, "Deuker's ability to move beyond mechanical discussions of various sports and provide insight into the universal struggles of young adults have deservedly earned him the reputation as one of the most promising contemporary writers of sports fiction."

Deuker was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay area. His father died when he was three years old, and to this day he is deeply conscious of the loss and deeply interested in father-son relationships. Deuker's mother encouraged her son to have an active imagination, and he began writing poetry and short stories while still in high school. In college at the University of California at Berkeley, he continued to write, placing some of his work in campus and underground magazines. "I was an English major," he told Authors and Artists for Young Adults (AAYA ), "took lots of writing classes, was never the best writer in class, but persisted with writing anyway." After earning a master's degree, Deuker gravitated into journalism but finally decided to earn a teaching certificate. He has been a middle school teacher since 1977, writing his books before he goes to work in the morning and revising them at night.

Although Deuker's books are set in high school, he actually writes for the middle school audience. "My books are ways for them to peek ahead in their lives and perhaps be a little prepared for what might be coming," he said. Unlike most award-winning novelists, he thoroughly enjoys his work as a teacher and draws inspiration from it. "I have no plans to go full time [as a writer]," he admitted. "I don't think I could handle the pressure of writing for a livelihood."

In Deuker's first book, On the Devil's Court, Joe Faust, a high school student with a nearly obsessive interest in basketball, moves with his family from the East Coast to the West. Believing that the move will further his basketball career, Joe convinces his parents to let him attend a large public school with a strong sports program. However, Joe's attendance at a drunken party leads to a run-in with police, after which his parents insist that he enroll at a small private school. One evening in the gym, an angry Joe, who has just been demoted to the junior varsity, hits every shot he takes. Inspired by his recent reading of Christopher Marlowe's Dr. Faustus, Joe offers himself to the Devil in exchange for continued prowess and a perfect season. No sooner is the promise made than Joe begins to star on the varsity team, leading his school to the state finals. With each victory, Joe becomes increasingly anxious about his fate. Has he really sold himself to the Devil? In light of his success, Joe wonders if his father's untimely heart attack isn't an early payment. Not until Joe's team wins without him does he realize that the season belongs to his team, and that he has made a bargain with no one but himself.

In a School Library Journal review, Gerry Larson called On the Devil's Court a "fine addition to sports fiction," and praised Deuker's engaging mixture of suspense, family drama, and athletic competition. Publishers Weekly reviewers Kimberly Olsen Fakih and Diane Roback considered Deuker's characters well-rounded and deemed the book a "vivid contemporary morality play." Horn Book reviewer Nancy Vasilakis asserted that young readers will enjoy both the story and Joe's ability to deal squarely with his parents by the book's end, "whether or not they fully comprehend what developmental steps were taken to achieve this measure of independence."

In Heart of a Champion, Deuker uses baseball to examine the lives of two adolescent boys. Seth has yet to come to terms with his father's death when he meets Jimmy, a budding young baseball star. Inspired by Jimmy's intense pursuit of the game, Seth begins playing baseball, and the competitive nature of the game increases his confidence in other aspects of his life. Seth's grades improve, and, with his mother's help, he begins to address his father's death. Behind their shared success in baseball, however, is Jimmy's father, an alcoholic who drives his son toward perfection on the

diamond. His influence proves tragic when Jimmy, a high school baseball star, dies in an alcohol-related traffic accident. Seth must then deal with the loss of his closest friend, as well as the complexity of the father-son relationship that foreshadowed Jimmy's death.

In a review for School Library Journal, Jack Forman speculated that the "well-paced novel will involve many readers." A Horn Book reviewer called Heart of a Champion a "sensitive, moving portrait of adolescence combined with dramatic sports action." Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books reviewer Betsy Hearne praised the detailed relationship between the boys, but was more struck by the book's realistic portrayal of the "balance between talent and discipline."

Painting the Black once again explores the destructive behavior of a star high school athlete. Josh Daniels is a success in two sports: football and baseball. His exploits on the field are so spectacular that both fellow students and the school administration are tempted to overlook his temperamental outbursts and cruelty to female students. Recruited to serve as a catcher for Josh's pitching, Ryan Ward forms a strong friendship with the athlete and through it finds the courage to regain his own footing as a baseball player. Together the two boys craft a potential championship season for their baseball team, but their aspirations are put to the test when Ryan foils Josh's attempts to assault Monica Robey, an academic star. Ryan faces a difficult choice: Will he, too, overlook Josh's antisocial behavior, or will he report the incident and put an end to his team's championship hopes?

Deuker told AAYA that Painting the Black was based on a real incident in which a star athlete acted inappropriately toward a classmate. Critics of the book praised its realistic detailing of the "double standard" that sometimes surrounds sports heroes. Some reviewers also liked the way the story is filtered through Ryan's perspective, noting that the crux of the conflict lies in Ryan's epic battle with his own conscience. A contributor to Kirkus Reviews noted that Deuker, "adept at capturing the thrills during the game, also proves talented at dramatizing Ryan's torment…. The depiction of a boy coming into his own is resonant and inspiring." Candace Smith in Booklist suggested that Ryan's "moral courage … will linger when the reading is done."

Deuker often writes about the one-on-one bonding that young men can experience when they play sports together. In Night Hoops, Nick Abbott takes solace in basketball when his parents divorce, but he finds that his emotions spill onto the court and affect his game. It is only when Nick begins to play one-on-one with the grim and antisocial Trent Dawson that he begins to learn how to fit into a team—and how to break down the barriers between himself and others. "This is an excellent novel … authentic throughout," observed Todd Morning in School Library Journal. Morning added that Deuker "perfectly captures the swirl of ideas in the adolescent mind." A Publishers Weekly reviewer called Night Hoops "an honest depiction of the contemporary high-school sports scene."

In High Heat, Shane Hunter's life is shaken at its roots when his father, facing money laundering charges, suddenly commits suicide. Shane, who has been raised in a life of luxury that includes private schools and a lovely home, must move with his family into subsidized housing, and he begins to fall apart in the new environment. Help comes in the form of his new public school's baseball coach, who convinces Shane to try out for the team. As a relief pitcher, Shane finally finds himself again, but faces a new crisis when he beans an opponent from his former school. Fearful that he has lost his pitching ability and his grip on life in general, Shane forms a friendship with the player he struck. Together they try to make sense of what has happened and how it will affect their futures.

According to John Peters in a review for Booklist, High Heat contains "enough taut sports action … to satisfy the most avid fan." Writing for School Library Journal, Morning noted that the story "delivers baseball action along with a rich psychological portrait," and a Publishers Weekly critic felt that, although the story builds on a dark premise, "the arc of redemption reminds readers that love conquers all—as does the pursuit of personal excellence."

Deuker once told AAYA that he was inspired to write sports novels by the fact that the ones he read as a boy were rarely about sports at all. "Often I'd put the book down and turn to something else, usually historical fiction with a lot of war in it. Those books delivered what they promised. As a writer of sports fiction, I decided early on to make sure I delivered on the promise—that sports be front and center. But I also wanted to make sure that each book gave a little bit more." To SATA, Deuker said: "There's a big difference between being alone and being lonely. I was alone often as a child, rarely lonely. Those imaginary games and all that time I 'wasted' playing them—in those hours I was becoming a writer."

Biographical and Critical Sources

books

Authors and Artists for Young Adults, Volume 26, Gale Detroit, MI), 1999.

St. James Guide to Young Adult Writers, 2nd edition, St. James (Detroit, MI), 1999.

periodicals

Booklist, June 1, 1997, Candace Smith, review of Painting the Black; May 1, 2000, Frances Bradburn, review of Night Hoops, p. 1658; August, 2003, John Peters, review of High Heat, p. 1982.

Booktalker, September, 1989, p. 11.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, September, 1993, Betsy Hearne, review of Heart of a Champion, p. 7.

Horn Book, March-April, 1989, Nancy Vasilakis, review of On the Devil's Court, p. 216; May/June, 1993, review of Heart of a Champion, p. 337; May/June, 1997, Maeve Visser Knoth, review of Painting the Black, p. 317; May, 2000, P. D. S., review of Night Hoops, p. 312.

Kirkus Reviews, January 1, 1989, pp. 47-48; May 15, 1993, review of Heart of a Champion.

Publishers Weekly, November 11, 1988, Kimberly Olsen Fakih and Diane Roback, review of On the Devil's Court, p. 60; May 31, 1993, pp. 56-57; April 10, 2000, review of Night Hoops, p. 99; May 19, 2003, review of High Heat, p. 75.

School Library Journal, January, 1989, Gerry Larson, review of On the Devil's Court, p. 92; June, 1993, Jack Forman, review of Heart of a Champion, p. 126; May, 1997, Todd Morning, review of Painting the Black; May, 2000, Todd Morning, review of Night Hoops, p. 171; July, 2003, Todd Morning, review of High Heat, p. 128.

Voice of Youth Advocates, April, 1989, Doris Losey, review of On the Devil's Court, p. 27; August, 1997, Susan Dunn, review of Painting the Black, p. 182.

DEUKER, Carl 1950-

PERSONAL: Born August 26, 1950, in San Francisco, CA; son of John and Marie (Milligan) Deuker; married Anne Mitchell (a teacher), 1978; children: Marian. Education: University of California at Berkeley, B.A., 1972; University of Washington, M.A., 1974; University of California at Los Angeles, teaching certificate, 1976. Politics: Democrat.

ADDRESSES: Home—2827 Northwest 62nd St., Seattle, WA 98107. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Saint Luke School, Seattle, WA, teacher, 1977-90; Northshore School District, Bothell, WA, teacher, 1991—. Seattle Sun (daily newspaper), film and book critic, 1980-85.

MEMBER: Authors Guild, Authors League of America, Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS: South Carolina Young Adult Book Award, 1992, for On the Devil's Court; Heart of a Champion, On the Devil's Court, and Panting the Black were all named to ALA Best Books for Young Adults list; Nebraska Golden Sower Award and Tennessee Volunteer State Book Award, 1996, Pennsylvania Young Readers' Choice Award, 1997, and ALA Best Book for Reluctant Readers citation, all for Heart of a Champion; New York Library Books for the Teen Age citation and Young Adult Book of the Year Award from Texas, both 1997, both for Painting the Black; Nebraska Golden Sower Award, 2003, for Night Hoops.

WRITINGS:

On the Devil's Court, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1988.

Heart of a Champion, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1993.

Painting the Black, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1997.

Night Hoops, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2000.

High Heat, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2003.

Contributor of short story, "If You Can't Be Lucky," to Ultimate Sports, edited by Donald Gallo.

SIDELIGHTS: Carl Deuker once commented that he is often asked by his readers if he writes sports novels for young adults because he was an outstanding athlete. "The answer is—not really," he confessed. "As a high school student, I made a few teams, but I did more sitting on the bench than playing. In college I played on intramural teams. But it wasn't those experiences that laid the groundwork for my becoming a writer.

"Instead I think I was on my way to becoming a writer with the imaginary games I played alone between the ages of eight and twelve. For hour after hour, the dart board in my garage was the strike zone, and I was Juan Marichal baffling the Dodgers. Or the pillow on the sofa was the basketball hoop, the walnut was the basketball, and I was Rick Barry, draining twenty-footers to beat the Lakers. I played football games with marbles, baseball games with clothespins, golf with hula hoops. But really I played those games—literally thousands of them—in my mind."

Deuker still plays games in his mind, but now he does so in the context of sports novels. His characters are high school athletes with differing abilities, ambitions, and psychological baggage, but their stories all unfold within the sports that they choose to play. Far from being just a hinge upon which to hang a plot, sports in Deuker's novels serve as a central metaphor for the complicated process of growing up. As a contributor to the St. James Guide to Young Adult Writers put it, "Deuker's ability to move beyond mechanical discussions of various sports and provide insight into the universal struggles of young adults have deservedly earned him the reputation as one of the most promising contemporary writers of sports fiction."

Deuker was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay area. His father died when he was three years old, and to this day he is deeply conscious of the loss and deeply interested in father-son relationships. Deuker's mother encouraged her son to have an active imagination, and he began writing poetry and short stories while still in high school. In college at the University of California at Berkeley, he continued to write, placing some of his work in campus and underground magazines. "I was an English major," he commented, "took lots of writing classes, was never the best writer in class, but persisted with writing anyway." After earning a master's degree, Deuker gravitated into journalism but finally decided to earn a teaching certificate. He has been a middle-school teacher since 1977, writing his books before he goes to work in the morning and revising them at night.

Although Deuker's books are set in high school, he actually writes for the middle-school audience. "My books are ways for them to peek ahead in their lives and perhaps be a little prepared for what might be coming," he said. Unlike most award-winning novelists, he thoroughly enjoys his work as a teacher and draws inspiration from it. "I have no plans to go full time [as a writer]," he admitted. "I don't think I could handle the pressure of writing for a livelihood."

In Deuker's first book, On the Devil's Court, Joe Faust, a high-school student with a nearly obsessive interest in basketball, moves with his family from the East Coast to the West. Believing that the move will further his basketball career, Joe convinces his parents to let him attend a large public school with a strong sports program. However, Joe's attendance at a drunken party leads to a run-in with police, after which his parents insist that he enroll at a small private school. One evening in the gym, an angry Joe, who has just been demoted to the junior varsity, hits every shot he takes. Inspired by his recent reading of Christopher Marlowe's Dr. Faustus, Joe offers himself to the Devil in exchange for continued prowess and a perfect season. No sooner is the promise made than Joe begins to star on the varsity team, leading his school to the state finals. With each victory, Joe becomes increasingly anxious about his fate. Has he really sold himself to the Devil? In light of his success, Joe wonders if his father's untimely heart attack isn't an early payment. Not until Joe's team wins without him does he realize that the season belongs to his team, and that he has made a bargain with no one but himself.

In a School Library Journal review, Gerry Larson called On the Devil's Court a "fine addition to sports fiction," and praised Deuker's engaging mixture of suspense, family drama, and athletic competition. Publishers Weekly reviewers Kimberly Olsen Fakih and Diane Roback considered Deuker's characters well-rounded and deemed the book a "vivid contemporary morality play." Horn Book reviewer Nancy Vasilakis asserted that young readers will enjoy both the story and Joe's ability to deal squarely with his parents by the book's end, "whether or not they fully comprehend what developmental steps were taken to achieve this measure of independence."

In Heart of a Champion, Deuker uses baseball to examine the lives of two adolescent boys. Seth has yet to come to terms with his father's death when he meets Jimmy, a budding young baseball star. Inspired by Jimmy's intense pursuit of the game, Seth begins playing baseball, and the competitive nature of the game increases his confidence in other aspects of his life. Seth's grades improve, and, with his mother's help, he begins to address his father's death. Behind their shared success in baseball, however, is Jimmy's father, an alcoholic who drives his son toward perfection on the diamond. His influence proves tragic when Jimmy, a high-school baseball star, dies in an alcohol-related traffic accident. Seth must then deal with the loss of his closest friend, as well as the complexity of the father-son relationship that foreshadowed Jimmy's death.

In a review for School Library Journal, Jack Forman speculated that the "well-paced novel will involve many readers." A Horn Book reviewer called Heart of a Champion a "sensitive, moving portrait of adolescence combined with dramatic sports action." Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books reviewer Betsy Hearne praised the detailed relationship between the boys, but was more struck by the book's realistic portrayal of the "balance between talent and discipline."

Painting the Black once again explores the destructive behavior of a star high-school athlete. Josh Daniels is a success in two sports: football and baseball. His exploits on the field are so spectacular that both fellow students and the school administration are tempted to overlook his temperamental outbursts and cruelty to female students. Recruited to serve as a catcher for Josh's pitching, Ryan Ward forms a strong friendship with the athlete and through it finds the courage to regain his own footing as a baseball player. Together the two boys craft a potential championship season for their baseball team, but their aspirations are put to the test when Ryan foils Josh's attempts to assault Monica Robey, an academic star. Ryan faces a difficult choice: Will he, too, overlook Josh's antisocial behavior, or will he report the incident and put an end to his team's championship hopes?

Deuker maintained that Painting the Black was based on a real incident in which a star athlete acted inappropriately toward a classmate. Critics of the book praised its realistic detailing of the "double standard" that sometimes surrounds sports heroes. Some reviewers also liked the way the story is filtered through Ryan's perspective, noting that the crux of the conflict lies in Ryan's epic battle with his own conscience. A contributor to Kirkus Reviews noted that Deuker, "adept at capturing the thrills during the game, also proves talented at dramatizing Ryan's torment. . . . The depiction of a boy coming into his own is resonant and inspiring." Candace Smith in Booklist suggested that Ryan's "moral courage . . . will linger when the reading is done."

Deuker often writes about the one-on-one bonding that young men can experience when they play sports together. In Night Hoops, Nick Abbott takes solace in basketball when his parents divorce, but he finds that his emotions spill onto the court and affect his game. It is only when Nick begins to play one-on-one with the grim and antisocial Trent Dawson that he begins to learn how to fit into a team—and how to break down the barriers between himself and others. "This is an excellent novel . . . authentic throughout," observed Todd Morning in School Library Journal. Morning added that Deuker "perfectly captures the swirl of ideas in the adolescent mind." A Publishers Weekly reviewer called Night Hoops "an honest depiction of the contemporary high-school sports scene."

In High Heat, Shane Hunter's life is shaken at its roots when his father, facing money laundering charges, suddenly commits suicide. Shane, who has been raised in a life of luxury that includes private schools and a lovely home, must move with his family into subsidized housing, and he begins to fall apart in the new environment. Help comes in the form of his new public school's baseball coach, who convinces Shane to try out for the team. As a relief pitcher, Shane finally finds himself again, but faces a new crisis when he beans an opponent from his former school. Fearful that he has lost his pitching ability and his grip on life in general, Shane forms a friendship with the player he struck. Together they try to make sense of what has happened and how it will affect their futures.

According to John Peters in a review for Booklist, High Heat contains "enough taut sports action . . . to satisfy the most avid fan." Writing for School Library Journal, Todd Morning noted that the story "delivers baseball action along with a rich psychological portrait," and a Publishers Weekly critic felt that, although the story builds on a dark premise, "the arc of redemption reminds readers that love conquers all—as does the pursuit of personal excellence."

Deuker commented that he was inspired to write sports novels by the fact that the ones he read as a boy were rarely about sports at all. "Often I'd put the book down and turn to something else, usually historical fiction with a lot of war in it. Those books delivered what they promised. As a writer of sports fiction, I decided early on to make sure I delivered on the promise—that sports be front and center. But I also wanted to make sure that each book gave a little bit more." Deuker commented: "There's a big difference between being alone and being lonely. I was alone often as a child, rarely lonely. Those imaginary games and all that time I 'wasted' playing them—in those hours I was becoming a writer."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

St. James Guide to Young Adult Writers, 2nd edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1999.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, June 1, 1997, Candace Smith, review of Painting the Black; May 1, 2000, Frances Bradburn, review of Night Hoops, p. 1658; August, 2003, John Peters, review of High Heat, p. 1982.

Booktalker, September, 1989, p. 11.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, September, 1993, Betsy Hearne, review of Heart of a Champion, p. 7.

Horn Book, March-April, 1989, Nancy Vasilakis, review of On the Devil's Court, p. 216; May-June, 1993, review of Heart of a Champion, p. 337; May-June, 1997, Maeve Visser Knoth, review of Painting the Black, p. 317; May, 2000, review of Night Hoops, p. 312.

Kirkus Reviews, January 1, 1989, pp. 47-48; May 15, 1993, review of Heart of a Champion.

Publishers Weekly, November 11, 1988, Kimberly Olsen Fakih and Diane Roback, review of On the Devil's Court, p. 60; May 31, 1993, pp. 56-57; April 10, 2000, review of Night Hoops, p. 99; May 19, 2003, review of High Heat, p. 75.

School Library Journal, January, 1989, Gerry Larson, review of On the Devil's Court, p. 92; June, 1993, Jack Forman, review of Heart of a Champion, p. 126; May, 1997, Todd Morning, review of Painting the Black; May, 2000, Todd Morning, review of Night Hoops, p. 171; July, 2003, Todd Morning, review of High Heat, p. 128.

Voice of Youth Advocates, April, 1989, Doris Losey, review of On the Devil's Court, p. 27; August, 1997, Susan Dunn, review of Painting the Black, p. 182.