I’m not your average book reviewer who only reviews the latest bestsellers. I enjoy mixing up my reading with unique books. Since this is an Olympic year, I wanted to throw an Olympic sport into my reading mix.
A lot of good sports fiction books have been written, but you would never expect to find one about table tennis. This one is filled with personal growth and transformation, travel, dog chases, breaking and entering, culture, and even culinary adventures.
Before I get into detail about this book, let me tell you a little bit of history I’ve had with the author. Hodges and I met while we were both taking college classes in journalism when he was working at the Olympic Training Center in 1990.
Before I knew about his official involvement with table tennis, I met Hodges across a table where he soundly beat me. He also did it while performing parlor tricks like beating me with his briefcase or a calculator. He also claimed he could beat me with an ice cube. His domination over my mediocre college-level skills was so great that I didn’t even take him up on the ice cube challenge.
Even though he was a professional table tennis coach and non-traditional college student (he already had a math degree), Hodges was a writer, mainly of table tennis articles and short fiction stories. I’ve read a lot of his stories before he became a regularly published author. I have been a fan of his short stories for decades!
Hodges became a member of the U.S.A. Table Tennis Hall of Fame in 2003. He still coaches in clinics and at the Maryland Table Tennis Center, which he co-founded.
The book is the ping pong version of Rocky and the Christmas Carol! Andy wants to be a table tennis champion and is willing to do whatever it takes. So he travels to the country that dominates table tennis – China! He meets the mysterious Coach Wang who helps guide Andy with meeting various spirits of legendary players. Andy learns a lot from each spirit. He trains for many months with each player.
At the end of his training in China, Andy must get past the formidable competitor Dragon or die trying! The play-by-play action was so realistic I felt like I was tableside at one of the many matches I watched at the Olympic Training Center.
Defeating the Dragon was not the end. Andy’s prize for defeating the Dragon is stolen and he must beat an even more skilled opponent. He digs deeper into his training, pulls out all the stops and has help from the spirits!
Hodges did a great job of weaving together table tennis and Chinese history, along with stories about the legendary players into a compelling story. I was especially touched by the tragic story of Rong Guotuan who became a victim of China’s Cultural Revolution. Andy had to relive the pain of Rong’s own country betraying him. This is sad because a lot of Olympic athletes represent their countries with pride.
I recommend this book readers of all ages who are interested in sports stories or table tennis. It’s also a good science fiction/fantasy if someone is looking for a quick read (just around 100 pages).
I have found table tennis to be a fun sport for families to get into. Hodges is working on a unique children’s picture book that introduces kids to table tennis in humorous Seussian rhyme coming out in April entitled “Ping Pong Paddles Can’t Talk.”
