Fact Friday: The Negro Leagues: Celebrating Baseball's Unsung Heroes by Matt Doeden

Image: Lerner Publishing

Happy Friday! Fact Friday features The Negro Leagues: Celebrating Baseball's Unsung Heroes by Matt Doeden. This book is part of the Spectacular Sports Series. Clocking in at 64 pages, this work of expository nonfiction provides a broad view of the history of Negro League baseball, but is a nice introduction for those not ready to take on We are the Ship. 

In the years following the Civil War, some baseball teams were integrated, but with the rise of Jim Crow, Black players were forced out and formed their own teams, often barnstorming their way around the country in search of teams to play. Eventually, teams became tied to cities and rivalries grew, such as the one between the Kansas City Monarchs and the Homestead Grays. The text is accompanied by many period photos of players both posed and in action.

Middle Grade Monday: Fast Pitch by Nic Stone

Welcome back! Did ya miss me? I took a week off of blogging last week. When I post here, I also post to my Library Group in our school's learning platform as well as our town's public library FB page. I didn't think anyone would notice that I went AWOL, so I was touched when students would stop by the library to ask where the book talks were. They were very understanding when I said I needed to take a short break. So sweet. I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving break. Mine was quite hectic, but I managed to get some reading in. I hope you did too. 

Image: Penguin Random House

Fast Pitch by Nic Stone. Unabridged e-audiobook, ~3.5 hours. Read by the author. Listening Library/ Penguin Random House, August, 2021. 9780593413760.

Middle Grade Monday features Fast Pitch by Nic Stone. Shenice is captain of her fast-pitch softball team. The team is very good and so is she, but it is also the first all-black team in their Georgia League and not everyone is welcoming. The girls and their coach deal with microaggressions and blatant racism as they play their way to the championships.

Shenice's father played some serious baseball, as did her grandfather, but no one ever talks about him until she visits her great-uncle in a nursing home. Great-uncle Jack is elderly and somewhat forgetful, so it takes a while for Shenice to piece together the mystery, and once she does, she decides she's going to find the evidence to clear her grandfather's name.

This fast-paced story is a nice blend of sports and mystery. It depicts racism past and present and shows what little progress has been made. The history of the Negro Leagues and the slow integration of Major League Baseball was also well done. Shenice is an appealing character, thoughtful, bright and athletic. She takes her role as captain seriously and wants to be a good leader. 

Ms. Stone did a fine job narrating. She sounded authentically tween when depicting Shenice and she sounded appropriately adult while voicing the adult characters. The performance was engaging and well-paced.

If you enjoyed Ms. Stone's MG debut, Clean Getaway, which was featured here last year, or her YA novels, Dear Martin and Dear Justyce, you will enjoy Fast Pitch. 

#tbt: We Are the Ship: The story of Negro League Baseball by Kadir Nelson

Image: LBYR

We are the Ship: The story of Negro League Baseball by Kadir Nelson. 96 p. Jump at the Sun/ Hyperion, January, 2008. 978078680328. (Own.)

#tbt features We are the Ship: The story of Negro League Baseball by Kadir Nelson. February marked the 100th anniversary of the formation of Negro League Baseball and there's no better way to learn about the many incredible athletes who played hard for pennies and endured racism on the road just for the love of the game. This masterful work was Nelson's author debut. He had illustrated around seventeen picture books prior to the publication of We are the Ship, which won the Sibert Medal as well as two medals from the Coretta Scott King committee - both the Author and Illustrator awards. 

This gorgeously designed, oversized volume has heft. Using a fictionalized narrator, Nelson tells the story of the league from the 1920s until 1947, when Jackie Robinson left it to join Major League Baseball. Click here for a short clip of Mr. Nelson talking about the book. Click here to view a short clip of him reading a chapter of the book. 

This past January, he finally received the Caldecott Medal. The Undefeated by Kwame Alexander won Alexander a Newbery Honor and Mr. Nelson the Medal as well as a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award. He had previously won two Caldecott Honors. Sadly, the Youth Media Awards Banquet has been cancelled as were celebrations around the centennial of Negro League Baseball. Click here to view a CBS This Morning segment on him and view the painting this pandemic inspired.