Review by Booklist Review
PreS-Gr. 2.ohnson pays tribute to Negro Leagues legendosh Gibson in this poetic picture book about a girl who longs to play ball. The narrator is a young girl, who tells her grandmother's story. Grandmama's father, a die-hard Gibson fan, teaches his daughter to play baseball, even though there were no teams for girls in the 1940s. When her cousin Danny is injured in a game, Grandmama fills in. Wearing her pink dress with a white bow, she bats and catches just likeosh Gibson, earning cheers that she still cherishes.ohnson tempers what could have been a sentimental tale with Grandmama's contagious enthusiasm and sense of empowerment, and her text has a baseball announcer's suspenseful rhythm: the balls sailed away, sailed away, gone. Peck's angular pastels, while occasionally awkward in the details, skillfully capture the nostalgic sports action and celebration as well as the pride the girl feels in Grandmama's accomplishments. A closing note offers a brief, nicely documented biography of Gibson. --Gillian Engberg Copyright 2004 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Identified in an endnote as the "Babe Ruth of the Negro Leagues," Josh Gibson serves as the catalyst to Johnson's (Violet's Music, reviewed above) mildly girl-empowering baseball story. Sitting with her grandmother at the kitchen table, an African-American girl repeats Grandmama's tale of how her father showed up at the hospital "with a Louisville slugger and a smile. He said his new baby would make baseballs fly, just like Josh Gibson." Grandmama does play ball "once and again" when the boys let her (possibly echoing Gibson's own exclusion from the major leagues despite his talent). When Grandmama's cousin hurts his arm in a game one day, the girl steps in with a huge hit "just like Josh Gibson," her hero. In the best scene, Peck (A Christmas Memory) uses streaky pastels to portray the girl at bat in a pale pink dress and hair bows, smartly contrasting her determined expression with the rigidity of 1950s gender roles. Other scenes are hampered by characters' eerily skeletal limbs and limited emotional range. Everyone is nearly always smiling-even the young Grandmama as she stands outside the fence, watching the boys play without her. This glossing over of the girl's emotions weakens the text, too, which focuses on Grandmama's one day in the sun. Still, readers can't help but identify with the heroine when she joyfully participates in the sport she loves, however briefly. Ages 5-7. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 3-A young narrator opens this story about her grandmother with an anecdote about the legendary Josh Gibson, a Negro League player who once hit a baseball so hard in Pittsburgh that it landed during his game in Philadelphia the next day. That was the day Grandmama was born. Her father brought a Louisville slugger to the hospital and vowed that his daughter would "make baseballs fly, just like Josh Gibson." She became as good a player as the boys on the Maple Grove All-Stars, and sometimes she was invited to practice with them. When her cousin hurt his arm during a game, Grandmama got her chance to hear the cheers as she ran the bases, "stealing home." Peck's well-designed, richly colored pastel artwork, which shows people with emotion and depth, is clearly the highlight of the book. Young Grandmama, in yellow pedal pushers or a pink dress, stands out among the boys' white uniforms and the burnt orange chest protectors of the catcher and umpire. A close-up at the end shows the narrator holding the very ball her grandmother hit, as the older woman looks on, her hand on a photo of the team. Information about Hall of Famer Gibson is appended. Although the story is slight, it imparts the message that a girl can succeed at a "boy's game" if she sets her mind to it.-Susan Scheps, Shaker Heights Public Library, OH (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
When Grandmama was young, she could hit, run, and catch just like her idol, Negro League baseball player Josh Gibson, but she wasn't allowed to play on the boys' team. With thoughtful, understated text, Johnson captures a little girl's eventual triumph while inviting readers to consider the cost of exclusion based on race or gender. The atmospheric pastel illustrations bring the 1940s to life. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Peck's strong, evocative pastels with their vintage look are just right for Johnson's home run of a story. A girl tells of her Grandmama's birth and how her dad said his new baby would play just like the great Negro League catcher Josh Gibson. And so she did, practicing her hitting even though girls didn't play baseball in the '50s--except for one Fourth of July, when her cousin Danny's injury leaves an opening on his team. Grandmama hit the ball, caught the ball, and stole home--"just like Josh Gibson." The action takes place in memory, while the girl and her grandmother sit at a kitchen table with a photograph, bat, glove, and ball. An end note offers a brief bio of Gibson and makes reference to two female players who also have splendid picture books about them: Alta Weiss, who played pro ball in Deborah Hopkinson's Girl Wonder: A Baseball Story in Nine Innings (p. 232) and Jackie Mitchell, who struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig back-to-back in Marissa Moss's upcoming Mighty Jackie, the Strike-out Queen. Johnson never disappoints; in this one memory, family stories and baseball braid together a sweetly powerful and slyly subversive tale. (Picture book. 6-9) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
