A terrific gathering of heroic hacks and legendary near misses, ideal as a companion for systematic histories such as...
A sports fan’s delight: historical highlights (and lowlights), tributes to great players and lots of “Top Ten” lists ripe for vigorous second guessing.
ESPN columnist and NPR sports correspondent Bryant leads off with Babe Ruth and seals the win with the dramatic 2011 Cardinals/Rangers World Series. Using a seasonal organization, he lines up first a select set of players (“Spring”), then teams (“Summer”) and finally memorable World Series (“Fall”). In between the essays (a half-dozen per season) he offers lists of statistical leaders or of personal choices for most dominant players in an era, best nicknames and other hot-stove topics. He often angles his spotlight away from the usual feats and milestones to focus, for instance, not on Jackie Robinson’s entry into the major league in 1947, but on his career year of 1949 or on teams that won hearts and minds if not always games. An account of the sensational but steroid-spoiled home-run race between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa is at once exhilarating and thought-provoking. A woefully stingy set of photos highlighting a few players and triumphs is the only whiff here.
A terrific gathering of heroic hacks and legendary near misses, ideal as a companion for systematic histories such as Lawrence Ritter’s ripe-for-updating Story of Baseball (3rd edition, 1999). (timeline, index) (Nonfiction. 11-14)Pub Date: March 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-399-16903-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
The life of Manjiro Nakahama, also known as John Mung, makes an amazing story: shipwrecked as a young fisherman for months on a remote island, rescued by an American whaler, he became the first Japanese resident of the US. Then, after further adventures at sea and in the California gold fields, he returned to Japan where his first-hand knowledge of America and its people earned him a central role in the modernization of his country after its centuries of peaceful isolation had ended. Expanding a passage from her Commodore Perry in the Land of the Shogun (1985, Newbery Honor), Blumberg not only delivers an absorbing tale of severe hardships and startling accomplishments, but also takes side excursions to give readers vivid pictures of life in mid-19th-century Japan, aboard a whaler, and amidst the California Gold Rush. The illustrations, a generous mix of contemporary photos and prints with Manjiro’s own simple, expressive drawings interspersed, are at least as revealing. Seeing a photo of Commodore Perry side by side with a Japanese artist’s painted portrait, or strange renditions of a New England town and a steam train, based solely on Manjiro’s verbal descriptions, not only captures the unique flavor of Japanese art, but points up just how high were the self-imposed barriers that separated Japan from the rest of the world. Once again, Blumberg shows her ability to combine high adventure with vivid historical detail to open a window onto the past. (source note) (Biography. 10-13)
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2001
ISBN: 0-688-17484-1
Page Count: 80
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Born in 1880 in a tiny backwater in Alabama, Helen Keller lived a life familiar to many from the play and movie The Miracle Worker, as well as countless biographies. There’s no denying the drama in the story of the deaf and blind child for whom the world of language became possible through a dedicated and fanatically stubborn teacher, Annie Sullivan. But Helen’s life after that is even more remarkable: she went to high school and then to Radcliffe; she was a radical political thinker and a member of the Wobblies; she supported herself by lecture tours and vaudeville excursions as well as through the kindness of many. Dash (The Longitude Prize, p. 1483) does a clear-sighted and absorbing job of examining Annie’s prickly personality and the tender family that she, Helen, and Annie’s husband John Macy formed. She touches on the family pressures that conspired to keep Helen from her own pursuit of love and marriage; she makes vivid not only Helen’s brilliant and vibrant intelligence and personality, but the support of many people who loved her, cared for her, and served her. She also does not shrink from the describing the social and class divisions that kept some from crediting Annie Sullivan and others intent on making Helen into a puppet and no more. Riveting reading for students in need of inspiration, or who’re overcoming disability or studying changing expectations for women. (Biography. 10-14)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-590-90715-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
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