Nonfiction Monday Book Review: Becoming Babe Ruth, by Matt Tavares (Candlewick, 2013)

Recommended for ages 5 and up.

I am not much of a sports fan, but I do enjoy books about baseball players of long ago.  Babe Ruth is such an epic figure in the history of sports, but one that I suspect kids today do not know that well.  When I was growing up, I remember well when Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth's lifetime home run record, which was a huge deal back in 1974.  Of course since then, the record has been broken again by the controversial Barry Bonds, and now Ruth ranks 3rd on the home run king list.  But given the much shorter seasons played in those days, being third doesn't really diminish Ruth's stature as one of the great home run kings!

Matt Tavares has written some wonderful baseball picture books, including Hank Aaron's Dream and There Goes Ted Williams.

Tavares' new picture book on Ruth is a wonderful addition to these prior books.  It concentrates on Ruth's early years, when he was just a kid in Baltimore who got into trouble a lot.  At the tender age of seven, he was left by his parents at a very strict reform school, St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys.  Although to contemporary kids this must seem like a fate worse than death, it's not so bad for George, because he gets to play baseball almost every day.  At school, he's taken under the wing of Brother Matthias, an excellent baseball player himself.  While still at St. Mary's, George is signed by the minor league Baltimore Orioles.  His teammates nickname him "Babe" since he is only sixteen and amazed by everything outside the gate of St. Mary's!  Starting out as a pitcher, Ruth is quickly traded to the major leagues, where he becomes a star pitcher for the Red Sox--at least until 1920, when he is sold to the Yankees for the huge sum of $125,000--the biggest fee ever paid at that time for a baseball player!

But Tavares shows us another side of Ruth--his compassion for orphans and kids from the wrong side of the tracks.  When his boyhood home, St. Mary's is destroyed by fire, Ruth invites the school band to tour with the Yankees to raise money to rebuild the school.  He even invites them to ride the train with him and treats them to ice cream sundaes in the dining car!

Tavares' oversized illustrations capture the jumbo personality of Babe Ruth, who became the biggest celebrity in America.  Tavares writes  "He wears fancy clothes, custom tailored just for him. He drives fast cars and throws wild parties.  He eats enormous amounts of food.  He does whatever he wants.  And he clobbers the baseball like nobody ever has."

Back matter includes an author's note with additional biographical information on Ruth, as well as his pitching and hitting stats and a brief bibliography.  Highly recommended!

Women's History Month Book Review: Touch the Sky: Alice Coachman, Olympic High Jumper, by Ann Malaspina (Albert Whitman, 2012)

Recommended for ages 5-10.

Young Alice Coachman, growing up in segregated Albany, Georgia, in the 1930's, just couldn't help herself.  She wanted to soar and touch the sky.

"Bare feet shouldn't fly./Long legs shouldn't spin./Braids shouldn't flap in the wind./'Sit on the porch and be a lady,' Papa scolded Alice," this book about the future Olympic athlete begins.  When she watched boys doing the high jump at a track meet, "Alice's feet tingled, wanting to try."  

We see Alice's dreams growing bigger as she gets older, until finally the high school coach needed a jumper for a track and field tournament in Alabama.  Her family was too poor to afford proper clothes for the competition, so her teachers pitched in and bought her shoes, shorts, and bright white socks.  For the first time, she competed with the best black athletes in the South.  In 1939, she won her first national medal, and soon she was asked to enroll at Tuskegee, where she'd be able to train with the best.  Alice worked hard to pay her school fees.  

Alice dreamed of the Olympics, but with the world consumed by war there were no games to enter.  Could she still compete in 1948?  Would she achieve her dream of a gold medal in the high jump--and  finally touch the sky?  

Written in a simple yet poetic style, this book captures the spirit of a true American heroine and a pioneer in sports, one who is not widely known today.  It's a real "girl power" story, as well as a tale about overcoming prejudice.  The stunning large format oil paintings, by illustrator Eric Velasquez, with their vibrant colors and sweeping compositions, capture the intensity of Alice's story, and especially of her jumping.  

An author's note shows photographs of the real Alice and her teammates and tells about what happened to Alice after her triumph at the Olympics.  A bibliography is also included.  

Alice Coachman

When it rains, it pours, and another picture book about this outstanding athlete will be released later this month.  Queen of the Track:  Olympic Champion Alice Coachman, is published by Boyds Mills press.  It's written by Heather Lang and illustrated by Floyd Cooper.  

GIVEAWAY:   Would you like to know more about Touch the Sky and win a copy of this book and other women's history picture books?  Check out Ann Malaspina's post at Kidlit Celebrates Women's History Month and leave a comment to enter.  

Book Review: The Berlin Boxing Club, by Robert Sharenow (Harper Collins, 2011)

Recommended for 12 and up.  


Image via Wikipedia

Max Schmeling

Robert Sharenow's gripping new historical novel for teens tells the story of fourteen-year old Karl Stern, a young boy growing up in Berlin on the cusp of the Second World War.  He's never thought of himself as a Jew--his parents are agnostic, he's never been to synagogue, and with his fair coloring, small nose, and tall, skinny build, he doesn't "look" Jewish.  But it's 1934, and the bullies at his school are terrorizing the handful of Jewish students.  After they beat him up, Karl providentially gets the opportunity to take boxing lessons with the world-famous German heavyweight Max Schmeling, who it turns out is a friend of his father's.

Karl's never been much of an athlete, preferring to spend his free time drawing cartoons inspired by American and German comic strips.  In fact, his comics are interspersed throughout the novel.  He's lived a comfortable upper-middle class life in Berlin, with his little sister, their maid, and his parents, who own an art gallery that specialized in expressionist artists--at least until the Nazis deemed their art "degenerate," and forbade galleries to exhibit their work.  But with the Nazis in power, business at their gallery is drying up, and their livelihood is coming from printing illicit flyers and serving as a middleman for desperate Jews anxious to sell their art before leaving the country. 

Throughout this period, boxing becomes an unexpected sanctuary for Karl, and the men of the Berlin Boxing Club, where Schmeling trains when he's in town, become a second family for him.  For Karl it's a new world, "a world of men and warriors," where he could dream of becoming German Youth Champion.  As long as no one discovers his secret, that is--that he is Jewish.  Schmeling puts Karl on a grueling training regimen of shoveling coal, push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, and running, before he even lets him get in the ring.  Karl also has to re-learn how to stand, breathe, and even eat as part of his training.  Soon he's sparring with grown-up men at the club, aspiring professional boxers who jokingly dub him "the punching bag."  As Karl re-shapes his body, he develops more confidence, even beginning a clandestine relationship with a beautiful Catholic girl in his apartment building.  While hiding his Jewish identity from his boxing friends, he's astonished to discover in American boxing magazines at the club that Italians, Irish, blacks, and Jews dominate boxing in the U.S.  One famous American fighter is even the son of an Orthodox rabbi! 

As conditions for Jews worsen throughout Germany with the passing of the Nuremberg laws,  Karl is expelled from school for being Jewish, and his family is evicted from their apartment and forced to move into their gallery.  At the same time, his idol and mentor, Max Schmeling, is pictured in the press hobnobbing with Hitler, Goebbels, and other Nazi leaders; Karl can't make sense of it, considering he knows Max has many Jewish friends and even his American manager is a Jew.  When Max takes on black heavyweight Joe Louis in the ring, it's more than a boxing match; it's a test of the Nazis' theories of Germany racial superiority.  The story comes to a climax around the harrowing night of Kristallnacht, when Karl's father's business is targeted by roving bands of Nazis.  Will Karl's friend Max be able to help save Karl and his family? 

Sharenow was clearly inspired by the real-life story of two Jewish boys who were actually rescued by Schmeling on Kristallnacht, although he is careful to note in an author's note that any similarities between the Stern family and the family of the rescued boys are "purely coincidental."  The author's note recounts briefly what happened to Schmeling, who was drafted as a paratrooper during the war, an especially dangerous duty that many interpreted as a "punishment" for his loss to Louis.  After the war Schmeling because a successful businessman with Coca-Cola, and was one of the pallbearers at Joe Louis' funeral (even paying for the funeral expenses, since Louis had fallen on hard times).  An afterword provides details on Sharenow's many sources for this well-researched novel, which included watching newsreels and films of Schmeling and Louis' fights on You Tube, as well as researching comic book pioneers from both Germany and the U.S. and numerous interviews with people who lived in Germany.  Sharenow's website includes a variety of historical video clips, not only of Schmeling and Louis' fights, but of Schmeling and his wife, a glamorous German movie star, in a film they made together, Berlin cabaret music, and more. 

So far Berlin Boxing Club has received well-deserved starred reviews from Kirkus and Publisher's Weekly; it's one of the best books I have read so far this year and I'm hoping this is a book the Printz award committee will be taking a close look at.  It's a book that is sure to appeal to many boys--even reluctant readers--but my 16-year old daughter also gobbled it up in one sitting.  There's plenty to appeal to adult readers as well, although the book is definitely a coming-of-age tale that's typical of the YA genre.  Even the minor characters in the book, such as the cross-dressing "countess" who's an old army buddy of Karl's dad from World War I, are highly memorable.  This book is definitely a "must purchase" for public and school libraries. 

A discussion guide for the novel is available on Sharenow's website. 

For more on the complex figure of Max Schmeling, see a BBC obituary from 2005, when Schmeling died just a few months short of his 100th birthday.

A 90-minute documentary The Fight, on the Louis-Schmeling fight of 1938, is available from PBS' American Experience and through Netflix.  The film's website includes a teacher's guide and a variety of background information on both fighters.

Disclosure:  ARC provided by publisher.

Nonfiction Monday Book Review for Hanukkah: Jackie's Gift: A True Story of Christmas, Hanukkah and Jackie Robinson, by Sharon Robinson and E. B. Lewis (Viking, 2010)

Recommended for ages 5-10

Release date:  October 14, 2010

This engaging new picture book for the holiday season offers a touching and funny true story about baseball legend Jackie Robinson, written by his own daughter Sharon Robinson, and illustrated by award-winning artist E. B. Lewis.

Young Steve Satlow is a huge baseball fan, and it's a dream come true when star Dodger player Jackie Robinson and his family move onto their block in their Brooklyn neighborhood.  We learn that some of their neighbors had tried to stop the Robinson family from being able to move into the neighborhood, but Steve's Jewish parents had refused to sign the petition.  Steve and his family befriend the Robinsons, and Steve even gets to go to a Dodger game, sit in the family seats right behind home plate, and walk home with Jackie himself!

When the holidays come around, Steve is invited over to help trim the Robinsons' tree.  When Jackie asks Steve if they've decorated their tree yet, Steve replies that they don't have one, and the subject seemed to be forgotten.  That is, until Jackie Robinson arrives at Steve's house with a Christmas true under his arm.  Of course Jackie doesn't realize the Satlows are Jewish and don't celebrate the holiday.  Although Steve is excited with the gift, his parents don't know what to do, since to them the tree is a religious symbol.  But when Mrs. Robinson comes over with ornaments for them to share, Mrs. Satlow tells them gently that they don't celebrate Christmas.  What could be an awkward moment for all concerned becomes instead a teaching moment about religious tolerance and friendship.

I thought this was a delightful holiday story, enriched by E.B. Lewis' trademark watercolor illustrations, which lend a nostalgic mood to the 1940's setting.  I would recommend this book for Jewish and Christian families alike, since it offers a subtle message of accepting all religious faiths which is well-suited to the holiday season.

The Los Angeles Times and the Seattle Times have picked this picture book as one of their recommended purchases for the holiday season for children and young adults.  You can also hear Sharon Robinson and Steve Satlow interviewed by Neil Simon of NPR at the following link.

For other perspectives on this story, see Lisa Silverman's article in The Jewish Journal, "It's Christmas Time for Chanukah Books."

Some read-alikes that celebrate similar messages include:

Elijah's Angel:  A Story for Chanukah and Christmas, by Michael Rosen, which celebrates the friendship between a young Jewish boy and an elderly African-American barber;
The Trees of the Dancing Goats, by Patricia Polacco, where a Jewish family pitches in to deliver Christmas trees when their Michigan town is hit with a scarlet fever epidemic;
A Chanukah Noel by Sharon Jennings, in which a Jewish girl in a small French village has her family help out a poor Christian neighbor by supplying their tree and all the trimmings.

For more great non-fiction books for kids, check out the Nonfiction Monday links at The Reading Tub.

Girl Power Book Review: She Loved Baseball: The Effa Manley Story, by Audrey Vernick, illustrated by Don Tate (Harper Collins 2010) ISBN 978-0-06-134920-1

Recommended for ages 5-10.  


To complete my "girl power" week on my blog, focusing on books about extraordinary women who bucked society's expectations for women's roles, I'm delighted to highlight a new biographical picture book about Effa Manley, the first--and only--woman inducted into the august National Baseball Hall of Fame.  No, she was not a baseball player herself, rather she was the proud co-owner and manager of the Newark Eagles, a Negro League team, and an advocate for civil rights.

Effa always loved baseball, and after moving to New York loved to see Babe Ruth play for the Yankees.  She was also an early civil rights organizer, establishing the Citizens' League for Fair Play in Harlem, to pressure Harlem's largest department store to hire black salesclerks.  "Don't Buy Where You Can't Work!," said their picket signs.  In 1935, Effa and her husband Abe started a new baseball team, the Eagles, that was part of the new Negro National League that her husband helped to establish.  Effa handled the team's business and attended league meetings, despite complaints from other owners that baseball was no place for a woman.  Her players called her their "mother hen," and she took care of them, even helping them find off-season jobs.

After Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in major league baseball, the Negro League stated losing fans and top players, and eventually disbanded.  But Effa's efforts on behalf of her players didn't end.  She feared the Negro Leagues would be forgotten, and began a campaign to convince the National Baseball Hall of Fame to consider the best Negro League Players for membership.  Due to her efforts, nine Negro League players were inducted between 1971 and 1977, but not enough according to Effa.  She continued to advocate for dozens of Negro League stars until she died in 1981.

Not until 2006 were many of Effa's favorites, including stars from her team, inducted in Cooperstown.  That year she, too, was inducted.  Author Audrey Vernick writes, "She was recognized for all she did for her players, for her civil rights work, and for getting the major leagues to treat Negro League teams with respect."

This is a terrific book on so many levels; it touches on themes of women's rights and roles, civil rights, baseball history, and so much more.  It would be an excellent book for classroom use or for parents to share with their children, particularly those who are baseball fans.  The vibrant full-color acrylic illustrations by Don Tate, in a style he calls "in between realistic and cartoony," add immeasurably to the book's visual appeal.

A teacher's guide for this outstanding book is available on the author's website.  The teacher's guide includes an interview with both the author and the illustrator.

For more on the history of the Negro Leagues, see their official website, as well as Kadir Nelson's award-winning book We Are the Ship:  The Story of Negro League Baseball  (Jump at the Sun/Hyperion, 2008).

A new adult biography, as yet unreviewed, of this fascinating woman is due out in 2011:  The Most Famous Woman in Baseball:  Effa Manley and the Negro Leagues, by Bob Luke (Potomac Books, January 2011).

Effa Manley, with some of her players

The Boys of Summer #5: Book Review: Henry Aaron's Dream, by Matt Tavares

Recommended for ages 5-10.

Somewhere in my childhood scrapbooks, I have the 1974 Sports Illustrated cover and article from when Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth's home run record, and I can remember the excitement of that time.  In this beautifully illustrated oversized picture book, award-winning author/illustrator Matt Tavares concentrates not on his home run record, but on the childhood and early career of baseball legend Hank Aaron.  Tavares has previously published three other picture books about baseball:  Oliver's Game (Candlewick, 2004), Zachary's Ball (Candlewick, 2000) and Mudball (Candlewick, 2005).

The book opens with a full-page illustration of a baseball field, seen through a fence with a large sign, prominently featured, reading WHITES ONLY.  We then meet Henry Aaron as a young boy in Alabama who wants to be a big-league baseball player.  So poor that he can't afford a bat or a ball, Henry's father  reminds him that there "ain't no colored ballplayers."  There were no baseball diamonds, either, in Mobile, Alabama, either, where black kids could play ball.  When a baseball field for "Colored Only" finally opens, young Henry spends all his time there practicing, till he can hit the ball harder than anyone else.  Henry's whole world changed in 1947, when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers, and Tavares depicts a glowing young Henry watching his idol play an exhibition game in Mobile.

Henry started his career in the Negro Leagues, figuring that might be his best chance to be discovered.  His teammates knew he wouldn't be in the Negro Leagues for long, and soon a scout for the Braves spots Henry, offering him a minor-league contract.  Like Robinson, Aaron was called racial epithets by white fans, and sent threatening letters.  He even had rocks thrown at him.  Tavares writes:

Henry didn't understand why they hated him.  All he wanted to do was play baseball...but then he remembered Jackie Robinson and all he had gone through to pave the way.  And he remembered his teammates from the Negro Leagues, who never got the chance to live their dream.  Henry focused on the ball and tried to ignore everything else.

During spring training in 1954, Henry got his chance with the majors, traveling with the big-league club during spring training.  When two outfielders were out injured, Henry was put in, and before spring training was over, he had signed his first major-league contract.  Henry's impossible dream had come true!

Oversized illustrations done in watercolor, ink, and pencil spill onto two pages, and convey a monumental, sculptural quality, especially in the use of action close-ups, that suit very well the great accomplishments of Henry Aaron.  The use of earth tones and glowing light also evoke the not-so-long ago era when black and white players began to play baseball together, but couldn't stay in the same hotels in Southern cities or even play checkers together.  We see Henry and the other two black players on his minor-league team sitting in the kitchen playing cards while their white teammates celebrate at a big party in a Savannah restaurants, where blacks were not allowed.

Here's another illustrations from the book; Aaron's classic pose in the outfield reminded me of a Greek or Roman statue of an athlete.  I particularly liked the perspective, in which the artist makes Aaron huge and everything else in the image is very small, which emphasizes his great stature as a baseball player.

An author's note provides additional biographical information about Aaron, including not only how he broke Babe Ruth's home run record in 1974, but how he spoke out about the racial injustice he faced in baseball.  A chart of Aaron's baseball stats is also included, as well as a bibliography.

An interview with Matt about this book can be found at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast.

For adults or teens wanting to read more on Hank Aaron, a biography entitled The Last Hero:  A Life of Henry Aaron by Howard Bryant (Pantheon, 2010) is available.

The Boys of Summer #4: No Easy Way: The Story of Ted Williams and the last .400 season, by Fred Bowen and Charles S. Pyle (Dutton, 2010)

Recommended for ages 5-10.


No matter who does the ranking, no baseball fan would argue about Ted Williams being one of the greatest baseball players of all time.  Yet there are not a lot of books for young people about him, perhaps because in addition to being a great player, he was also known for being temperamental, demanding, and having an adversarial relationship with the press and sometimes with fans.  I was therefore eager to read Fred Bowen's new picture book about this baseball icon.  Bowen, as a sports columnist and a writer of sports fiction for kids, seems particularly well qualified to tackle this subject.

Rather than write a conventional biography of Williams, Bowen chose to concentrate on Williams' 1941 season with the Red Sox, the year he hit .406, a feat no other baseball player has come close to equalling in the following 60 or so years.  We learn a bit about Williams' background growing up in San Diego in the 1930's, during the Depression.  Right away Williams' enormous ambition is highlighted:

From the time he was young, he knew exactly what he wanted to be.  "My dream was to walk down the street and have people say, 'There goes Ted Williams, the greatest hitter who ever lived.'"

Bowen emphasizes Williams' dedication to the sport, and the hours he spent practicing, before and after school, until blisters grew into hard, ugly calluses on his hands.  Why spend so much time practicing?  Because Ted "knew there was no easy way to become the greatest hitter who ever lived.  No easy way to do the single most difficult thing in sports:  to hit a round ball with a round bat." No other player, Bowen tells us, practiced more than Ted, even when he made the major leagues, not only swinging the bat over and over but also squeezing rubber balls to make his wrists and forearms strong.

All this practice pays off in the extraordinary 1941 season, when not only was Joe DiMaggio hitting in a record-breaking 56 straight game streak, Ted Williams was hitting consistently all over American ballparks--could he hit the magic .400 batting average?  By the end of the season, his average had dropped to .39955 with only two games to play.  He could sit out those last games, and stick with his average, which would have been rounded up to .400, according to baseball rules.  Even his manager thought he should sit out the last two games.  But that would be taking the "easy way out," and that wasn't Williams' style.  Although we know the results in advance, Bowen's exciting narrative builds a suspenseful mood as Williams takes his at-bats during the last two games, a double-header against the Philadelphia Athletics.  And the Athletics weren't going to make it easy for him....we almost hold our breath as Bowen describes how Williams, with his stupendous performance in this double-header, raised his average to a stellar .406.

This book is a great addition to baseball collections, and could be enjoyed by baseball fans young and old.  I particularly appreciated the way Bowen emphasized Williams' work ethic and his commitment to practicing.  An afterword with additional biographical information on Williams' life would have been a nice addition.  I also want to give special praise to Charles Pyle's old-fashioned illustrations, which brought to mind classic American illustrators such as Norman Rockwell; they complement the text perfectly, capturing Williams' speed and power but also the innocence of an earlier baseball era, with scenes of Williams eating an ice-cream cone and young boys selling newspapers from canvas bags.

For more on Ted Williams, see his official website, and visit a slew of interesting articles on the Red Sox website.  A new documentary about Ted Williams and his career aired on HBO last summer, although it doesn't appear to be available for purchase.

Also, baseball fans will want to watch for an upcoming picture book entitled The Unforgettable Season: Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams and the Record-Setting Summer of 1941, written by Phil Bildner and illustrated by S. D. Schindler, a Putnam Juvenile title due to be released in March of 2011.  

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• If Ted Williams Had Only Gotten One More Hit (bleacherreport.com)

The Boys of Summer #3: Clemente!, by William Perdomo and Brian Collier (Henry Holt, 2010)

Recommended for ages 5-10.

In honor of summer's baseball season I am continuing my series of recommendations of baseball picture book biographies for young readers. Just released this year is a vibrant new picture book on beloved baseball hero Roberto Clemente by award-winning writer Willie Perdomo, with dynamic illustrations by Caldecott-honor illustrator Bryan Collier. In the story, a little boy named in honor of the baseball star learns about his namesake. The text is written in a kind of free verse poetry, some of which rhymes and some of which doesn't. The language incorporates Spanish words as well as English. Here is an example of the very lively and rhythmic text:

Clemente!Clemente!/It's us, tu gente!/Clemente! Clemente!/Prince of the baseball diamante/Canon-arm Clemente,/Puerto Rican prince Clemente,/Hall-of-Fame Clemente.

The author presents basic biographical information on Clemente, including the anecdote that by the time he learned to walk, he was always throwing something: "a can, a tomato, a rag ball, hitting bottle caps against a wall." We learn of his many baseball records, including 4 batting titles, and 12 Golden Gloves. The author also recounts the story of Clemente's "last sacrifice fly." Sadly, he was killed in 1972 in a plane crash while on the way to Nicaragua to help victims of a massive earthquake. In the end, this is a highly inspirational story, which points out that "with faith, with hope, with belief in yourself...that anything is possible in this world." A few months after his untimely death, Clemente became the first Latino player elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

The illustrations in this book really enhance the text and make Clemente's story come alive. The artist explains in a note at the end of the book that he used a watercolor-and-collage technique with multiple repeated layers to express the speed, power, impact, and sound Clemente embodied when he played. There is a particularly noteworthy two-page spread where the artist uses three overlapping images of Clemente and about seven baseball bats to show the player at bat.

This book is highly recommended for public and school libraries, as well as for baseball fans of all ages.

Hear the author read this book at www.mackids.com/clemente.

The author provides a brief bibliography of other books for young people about Clemente, as well as a number of useful on-line resources, including a virtual exhibit from the Smithsonian Institution.

Boys of Summer #2: Book Review: All Star!: Honus Wagner and the Most Famous Baseball Card Ever, by Jane Yolen and Jim Burke (Philomel, 2010)

Recommended for ages 4-8.

In this beautiful new picture book biography, award-winning author Jane Yolen tells the story of one of baseball's all-time legends, shortstop Honus Wagner. Yolen opens her book explaining that a Honus Wagner baseball card sold for almost $3 million at auction in 2007. But in the book, we learn why his cards are especially rare. When Wagner realized his cards were being used to sell cigarettes, he had the card pulled off the market, concerned that it gave young people the wrong idea about smoking, a particularly refreshing story in this day of multi-million dollar endorsements of all kinds for athletes.

Born to a poor German immigrant family in Pennsylvania, Honus attends school only until sixth grade before joining his brothers and father in the coal mines. But Sundays were reserved for baseball, when Honus and his brothers played the game they loved. When Honus gets to the big leagues, there were only 12 teams and fewer players on the roster, but during his years with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Honus wins 8 National League batting championships and sets many other records. Yolen writes:

Clearly he was a great baseball player...some say the greatest baseball player ever. And he did it all without drugs or fancy training programs or million-dollar incentives--just for the pure love of the game.

In his fourth collaboration with Jane Yolen, illustrator Jim Burke's oil paintings greatly enhance her story. He uses an understated palette full of browns and other earth tones that gives an old-fashioned tinge to the pictures, fitting for the turn-of-the century time period. Yolen's text is written in a straight-forward style, and she punctuates her stories about Honus Wagner with the exclamation, "How about that!" a phrase that Honus often said. This book would be greatly enjoyed by young baseball fans and would be excellent to read aloud in class for elementary school aged children.

And here's a picture of the world-famous baseball card that sold for $2.8 million:
Readers might also be interested in exploring the official Honus Wagner website, which includes photos, facts, statistics, and biographical information on the legendary player.

The Boys of Summer: Baseball Books #1. You Never Heard of Sandy Koufax?! by Jonah Winter and Andre Carrilho, (Schwartz & Wade, 2009)

Recommended for ages 4-8, and baseball fans of all ages.

I was born and raised in Los Angeles, and am old enough to remember Sandy Koufax, but clearly there are many young people, including baseball fans, who have never heard of him. This picture book biography seeks to bring Koufax front and center for young fans. The book opens as follows:

You gotta be kidding! You never heard of Sandy Koufax?! He was only the greatest lefty who ever pitched in the game of baseball.

The narrator is an unidentified Dodgers teammate who talks in an informal, folksy, style. We learn about Koufax growing up Jewish in Brooklyn, where "he was supposed to be a doctor or a lawyer." But Sandy was a fantastic athlete, great at basketball as well as baseball. Soon the baseball scouts come "sniffin' around," and the 19-year old Koufax is signed to the Dodgers. But Koufax wasn't a great pitcher right away. Some of the guys didn't like him, both because he kept to himself and because he was Jewish, and his pitching was erratic, setting records for wild pitches. In fact, Koufax even quits the team, but soon enough is back at spring training. But finally Koufax hits his stride, striking out player after player, throwing so hard his hat falls off. But fame and success come with a price; his elbow swells so badly after each game that he has to ice it and constantly take painkillers.

Author Jonah Winter tells, of course, the famous story of how Koufax sat out the 1st game of the 1965 World Series--his turn to pitch--because it fell on the Jewish High Holy Days, when "if you're Jewish, you ain't supposed to work...Sandy sits out the game to show he's proud to be Jewish, and to set a good example...and becomes an even bigger hero to American Jews."

And when he's at the top of his game, he startles the baseball community by retiring. It was that, or lose the use of his arm.

Winter doesn't try to make Koufax into a warm and fuzzy guy--instead, he concentrates on his journey and special talents as a pitcher. The illustrations in the book by Portuguese illustrator Andre Carrilho are extraordinary; done in graphite on paper, with color and texture added on the computer, they capture the speed, power, and grace of Koufax on the mound.

The book includes sidebars filled with statistics as well as factoids such as a list of famous Jewish baseball players.
This book has received a number of well-earned awards, including Sydney Taylor Honor Book for Young Readers, "Top of the List" award from Booklist as the best children's non-fiction book of 2009, Booklist "Editor's Choice," and ALA Notable Book, and honors from Kirkus and Parents Magazine.

Useful links: interview with author Jonah Winter about this book .