Review by Booklist Review
Hall of Fame baseball star Ted Williams had one lifetime goal. When people saw him, he wanted them to acknowledge, There goes Ted Williams, the greatest hitter who ever lived. From his San Diego boyhood to his last at bat, this picture-book biography skims the key moments in Williams' military and professional career. More homage than biography, the narrative covers the bases but reveals almost nothing of Williams' personality or life outside baseball. Striking portraits, rendered in watercolor, gouache, and pencil, show the skinny young Williams and his gradual physical maturation into the lanky, muscular mature athlete and navy pilot. Back matter includes career statistics, a bibliography, and an author's note, which does provide a smattering of personal information about the Boston outfielder. The dramatic period art will attract reluctant readers and baseball fans, but the fans will hunger for more about the man.--Perkins, Linda Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Hall of Famer Ted Williams began playing baseball professionally at age 17, joining the then minor league San Diego Padres and playing his entire major league career with the Boston Red Sox. With subtle rhythm, Tavares's prose poem depicts the course of Williams's career, from his tireless commitment to practice ("He watches his swing in the mirror,/ again and again and again./ Two on, two out, last of the ninth...") through events that took him away from the field, including the eruption of two wars. But Williams always returned to baseball: rejoining the Red Sox after his plane is shot down in Korea, Williams hits 13 home runs in 37 games and is named Player of the Decade for the 1950s (Tavares briefly notes some of Williams's less positive traits in an afterword). With smooth, sweeping lines and naturalistic details, Tavares's mixed-media artwork conveys Williams's joyful devotion to his sport. Ages 6-10. Agent: Rosemary Stimola, Stimola Literary Studio. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 2-6-Following his outstanding Henry Aaron's Dream (Candlewick, 2010), Tavares has written an equally stunning book about another Baseball Hall of Famer. Even as a child, Williams had only one goal-to be the greatest hitter who ever lived. His work ethic, combined with immense talent, carried him through a career of 21 years, all with the Boston Red Sox, in which he seemed to conjure up magical moments at will. The author covers many of the highlights: Williams's game-winning home run in the 1941 All-Star game; his .406 season (a record that still stands); his numerous batting titles; his career-closing home run (immortalized by John Updike in a 1960 New Yorker article). In an author's note, Tavares shares how he learned to love the player, warts and all, through the stories his father told him. Williams's charisma dominates the illustrations, from the very first one of a scrawny boy swinging under the palm trees of a San Diego playground, to his final trip around the bases at Fenway. Due attention is also given to Williams's distinguished military career, which he approached with the same determination to dominate as he did hitting. The anecdote about him choosing to crash his disabled fighter jet rather than eject and risk breaking his legs-which would end his baseball career, if his age of 35 didn't-is a testament to the larger-than-life personality Tavares is trying to contain in his book. This is a glorious tribute to a baseball legend and a complicated human being.-Kara Schaff Dean, Walpole Public Library, MA (c) Copyright 2012. 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
Tavares continues his love affair with baseball with an ode to Boston Red Sox slugger Ted Williams, one of the greatest players of all time. Despite missing three years to World War II and flying thirty-nine combat missions in Korea, Williams amassed staggering statistics over a long career, and fans will always wonder what those stats might have been had he not lost those years. His most memorable season was 1941, when he batted .406 and was only twenty-one years old, but his career ran until 1960, when he hit a homer in his last at-bat. Tavares's present-tense narrative lends drama and immediacy to the all-smiles-and-heroics biography, and the watercolor, gouache, and pencil illustrations depict Williams as large as a double-page spread can hold. On one spread, Williams's head, torso, and baseball bat, in typical homerun swing, consume the available space. Turn the page, and an F9F Panther fighter jet all but flies out of the book. Turn again, and Ted is in the reader's face, fleeing the burning wreckage of his plane. The less smiley and heroic side to Williams's character is reserved for an interesting author's note, where Tavares discusses his own lifelong fascination with the Boston star. Published in time for Fenway Park's centennial celebrations, this full-of-life biography will be a hit with young baseball fans. dean schneider From HORN BOOK, Copyright The Horn Book, used with permission.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
(Picture book/ biography. 6-10)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
