Fair Ball!: 14 Great Stars from Baseball's Negro Leagues

by Jonah Winter

A striking picture book offers short biographies of fourteen outstanding players in the United States Negro Leagues, including Pop Lloyd, Oscar Charleston, and Buck Leonard. Reprint.

Genres: Sports, Baseball

32 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2002

About the author

Jonah Winter is the celebrated author of many picture book biographies, including Barack, which was a New York Times bestseller. His books include Here Comes the Garbage Barge, Sonia Sotomayor, Roberto Clemente, and more. A poet and a painter, Mr. Winter divides his time between Santa Fe and a small town in Pennsylvania.

Reviews

[(NS) Dana · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book talks about 14 legendary Negro baseball stars. Each page provides the reader with specific statistics about the play, a profile, as well as an illustration. There is also a few paragraphs on each player discussing personal aspects of their life.

I think this is an excellent informational book. Boys of all ages would love to pick this book up. They won’t even realize that they are reading. Students who are baseball fans will book completely engaged in this book. I like how the layout is consistent on each page so the reader knows exactly where to find a specific detail about a player. I especially like how each player has personal information such as their height, teams, positions, year of birth, year of death, as well as the years they played ball. Following the identity information are a few paragraphs statistically about the player. I think many readers will enjoy flipping back and forth through the pages comparing and contrasting different players and their statistics. There are many different teams mentioned in this book and the readers will enjoy looking at the illustrations of their uniforms and baseball accessories. I would recommend this book to readers of all levels. I think it would be a wonderful way to do a mini book report on a player for younger students.

[Michael Huscusson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Summary: This well-illustrated book gives information on 14 negro baseball players. Many children have heard of Babe Ruth, but not these athletes that had amazing talent. Each page tells the reader statistics, a profile, and an illustration of each athlete.

Classroom Use: This book would be great for teachers to help get student engaged in reading. This could be used in a lesson to spark an interest in a students mind and get them to read more often.

I loved how this story used a full page to illustrate the characters as if they were on a baseball card. This might spark interest in readers about sports and who have collected cards before. I also enjoyed all of the statistics about each baseball player. This lets the reader know how truly outstanding these African American baseball players were. By explaining their background, students who come from different cultures might also be able to relate to them better.

[Kris Dersch · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a really cool book and a really cool concept that is going to struggle with its audience. I think it has more adult appeal than kid appeal, certainly it would take a big baseball fan to really appreciate it, but for those who are it is an absolute treasure trove.

[Marilyn Nixon]

Would be a great book for youth also

[Maura · Rating 5 out of 5]

My 7 year old son loves this so much that we kept it out from the library for 12 weeks and I may have to buy our own copy now.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had never heard of most of the ballplayers in this book and it was a lot of fun to learn about these forgotten greats of the game. Good for baseball fans everywhere.