Review by Booklist Review
This collection of poems celebrates baseball players who were stars in the Negro leagues, franchises that existed from the 1920s to 1962. The poems include a variety of styles (free verse, acrostic, rhythmic chants, even a couplet) and are brief, energetic, and filled with onomatopoeic words like pop and swat that evoke action and excitement. The illustrations do an especially effective job of capturing motion and movement, elongating players' limbs or distorting bodies to emphasize the amazing athleticism and physical feats. The rich back matter includes brief biographical sketches of the 12 featured players (including their lifetime stats) and an engaging Q & A about the Negro leagues, including poignant questions like "Were the players just as good as the pros in Major League Baseball?" Updates indicate that every player in the collection is a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame (along with 25 colleagues) and that, as of 2024, Negro league statistics are included in official standings, proving that these Black players were some of the best who ever played.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
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 classicWe 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) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
