Burke was so impressive a figure, his story so gripping, that this book holds unquestionable merit.
The story of a baseball player whose life serves as testimony to where we’ve come from and how far we still have to go.
In 1977, Burke was a gay Black man playing center field for the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series; by 1995, he would be dead at 42 due to complications of AIDS. Maraniss meticulously charts a path from Burke’s Berkeley, California, upbringing as an all-around athlete through his relatively brief but significant MLB stint to San Francisco’s Tenderloin District, where he struggled through addiction, incarceration, poverty, housing insecurity, and sickness in the final chapters of his life. The author presents a critical interpretation of Burke’s life, juxtaposing interviews with contemporaries with accounts of 1969’s Stonewall uprising, Anita Bryant’s anti–gay rights campaign, and Magic Johnson’s 1991 HIV announcement. This creates a compelling narrative, offering helpful context for young readers in a complicated account of race, sexuality, and a dream deferred, yet it pushes Burke from the foreground, centering the national media and sports establishments that used and critiqued Burke’s body and what he did with it. Not exactly a biography, this is a meticulously researched history of the ways queer culture in the ’70s intersected with baseball, Blackness, and larger culture wars, with one man at their center.
Burke was so impressive a figure, his story so gripping, that this book holds unquestionable merit. (notes, interviews, bibliography, baseball statistics, timeline, Black LGBTQ+ individuals, index) (Nonfiction. 12-18)Pub Date: March 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-11672-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
Small but mighty necessary reading.
A miniature manifesto for radical queer acceptance that weaves together the personal and political.
Eli, a cis gay white Jewish man, uses his own identities and experiences to frame and acknowledge his perspective. In the prologue, Eli compares the global Jewish community to the global queer community, noting, “We don’t always get it right, but the importance of showing up for other Jews has been carved into the DNA of what it means to be Jewish. It is my dream that queer people develop the same ideology—what I like to call a Global Queer Conscience.” He details his own isolating experiences as a queer adolescent in an Orthodox Jewish community and reflects on how he and so many others would have benefitted from a robust and supportive queer community. The rest of the book outlines 10 principles based on the belief that an expectation of mutual care and concern across various other dimensions of identity can be integrated into queer community values. Eli’s prose is clear, straightforward, and powerful. While he makes some choices that may be divisive—for example, using the initialism LGBTQIAA+ which includes “ally”—he always makes clear those are his personal choices and that the language is ever evolving.
Small but mighty necessary reading. (resources) (Nonfiction. 14-18)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09368-9
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
Brief yet inspirational, this story will galvanize youth to use their voices for change.
Testa’s connection to and respect for nature compelled her to begin championing animal causes at the age of 10, and this desire to have an impact later propelled her to dedicate her life to fighting plastic pollution. Starting with the history of plastic and how it’s produced, Testa acknowledges the benefits of plastics for humanity but also the many ways it harms our planet. Instead of relying on recycling—which is both insufficient and ineffective—she urges readers to follow two additional R’s: “refuse” and “raise awareness.” Readers are encouraged to do their part, starting with small things like refusing to use plastic straws and water bottles and eventually working up to using their voices to influence business and policy change. In the process, she highlights other youth advocates working toward the same cause. Short chapters include personal examples, such as observations of plastic pollution in Mauritius, her maternal grandparents’ birthplace. Testa makes her case not only against plastic pollution, but also for the work she’s done, resulting in something of a college-admissions–essay tone. Nevertheless, the first-person accounts paired with science will have an impact on readers. Unfortunately, no sources are cited and the lack of backmatter is a missed opportunity.
Brief yet inspirational, this story will galvanize youth to use their voices for change. (Nonfiction. 12-18)Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-22333-8
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020
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