Bird in a Box / Andrea Davis Pinkney / 278 pages / September Challenge 1940's

Hibernia longs to be a singer.  She sings in the choir at the church where her dad is the reverend, but she is constantly urged to tone it down.  Willie comes from an abusive home where his father deliberately burned his hand.  His mom took him to the orphanage to keep him safe.  Here he meets Otis, a riddle master, who lost both his parents in a car accident.  Hibernia's choir sings at the orphanage.  All three kids and most everyone else are caught up in the career of boxer Joe Lewis, the Brown Bomber and his reign as champion from 1939-1947.  Author Andrea Davis Pinkney actually took boxing lessons wearing Joe Lewis's gloves to prepare herself for writing this book.  This is a moving work of historical fiction based on the times of boxer Joe Lewis.