Strong words and pictures add up to a sweet double play.
From Satchel Paige to Norman “Turkey” Stearnes, a dozen stars who spent all or most of their careers in the Negro Leagues strut their stuff.
Smith’s verse tributes catch his subjects in action. Here’s third baseman Ray Dandridge, for example: “Hooks on the hot corner / moving like a cat, / pouncing and leaping / at the crack of the bat.” Most of the rhythms are quick and urgent, though some entries offer a change of pace, like the sonnet for Willie Wells—“So long as hands can clap and eyes can see, / Willie, the Shakespeare of shortstops, is thee”—and a series of riffs on the legendary speed of “Cool Papa” Bell, “so fast, he scored from first off a sacrifice bunt.” Echoing the visual gravity of the illustrations in Kadir Nelson’s classic We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball (2008), Brandon follows suit with on-field images of long-limbed, sometimes exaggeratedly lanky athletes in balletic poses interspersed with close-ups of chiseled figures with imposing game faces. Closing player notes underscore the greatness of each of these players; Smith acknowledges that these Negro League career statistics were finally and properly, in 2024, added to Major League records.
Strong words and pictures add up to a sweet double play. (Picture-book poetry. 6-9)Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781536225358
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2025
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses.
An NBA star pays tribute to the influence of his grandfather.
In the same vein as his Long Shot (2009), illustrated by Frank Morrison, this latest from Paul prioritizes values and character: “My granddad Papa Chilly had dreams that came true,” he writes, “so maybe if I listen and watch him, / mine will too.” So it is that the wide-eyed Black child in the simply drawn illustrations rises early to get to the playground hoops before anyone else, watches his elder working hard and respecting others, hears him cheering along with the rest of the family from the stands during games, and recalls in a prose afterword that his grandfather wasn’t one to lecture but taught by example. Paul mentions in both the text and the backmatter that Papa Chilly was the first African American to own a service station in North Carolina (his presumed dream) but not that he was killed in a robbery, which has the effect of keeping the overall tone positive and the instructional content one-dimensional. Figures in the pictures are mostly dark-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-250-81003-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
A pivotal moment in a child’s life, at once stirring and authentically personal.
Before growing up to become a major figure in the civil rights movement, a boy finds a role model.
Buffing up a childhood tale told by her renowned father, Young Shelton describes how young Andrew saw scary men marching in his New Orleans neighborhood (“It sounded like they were yelling ‘Hi, Hitler!’ ”). In response to his questions, his father took him to see a newsreel of Jesse Owens (“a runner who looked like me”) triumphing in the 1936 Olympics. “Racism is a sickness,” his father tells him. “We’ve got to help folks like that.” How? “Well, you can start by just being the best person you can be,” his father replies. “It’s what you do that counts.” In James’ hazy chalk pastels, Andrew joins racially diverse playmates (including a White child with an Irish accent proudly displaying the nickel he got from his aunt as a bribe to stop playing with “those Colored boys”) in tag and other games, playing catch with his dad, sitting in the midst of a cheering crowd in the local theater’s segregated balcony, and finally visualizing himself pelting down a track alongside his new hero—“head up, back straight, eyes focused,” as a thematically repeated line has it, on the finish line. An afterword by Young Shelton explains that she retold this story, told to her many times growing up, drawing from conversations with Young and from her own research; family photos are also included. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A pivotal moment in a child’s life, at once stirring and authentically personal. (illustrator’s note) (Autobiographical picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-545-55465-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
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