Jackie
Robinson: Strong Inside and Out
Time
for Kids Biographies
By
Denise
Lewis Patrick and the editors of Time for Kids
The
focus of this biography of Jackie Robinson is strength -- primarily
the strength required to walk away from confrontation. Robinson
lived in a country that didn't really admire men who walked away
from a fight. Today, young men feel even more strongly about it.
We see player on player fights at sporting events. We see athletes
attack fans. The motto seems to be "When dissed, fight."
But Jackie Robinson was disrespected by his country, his teammates,
and his fans, but he did not fight. He had promised he would not
and he proved to be a man of his word. Thus, the authors of this
biography take an unabashed stance of admiration for Jackie Robinson.
I
agree with the book, there is definitely material for admiration
here. In fact, in the entire book, I only took exception to one
remark about a few of Jackie's teammates who didn't want to play
with him. The author says "they kept their southern ideas about
race." Remarks like that make it sound like racism was only
a regional issue and downplay the national need for the civil rights
movement. Racism isn't a regional issue -- it's a human one. And
what of those people in the South who abhorred racism -- were they
somehow not Southern? But other than passing along a long held myth
that racism was strictly a regional problem, I enjoyed the book
very much. As a story of determination and honor, it's a winner.
|
The
Book
|
Harper
Collins Publishers |
January
4th, 2005 |
Hardbound |
0660576014 |
Nonfiction/Ages
7-9 |
More
at Amazon.com |
Excerpt
|
NOTE:
|
The
Reviewer |
Jan Fields |
Reviewed
2005 |
NOTE:
|
|