Module 5: Other Award Winners

Module 5: Other Award Winners

We are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball by Kadir Nelson

Summary: We are the Ship is a history of the Negro Leagues from its inception in the mid-1860’s to the end of the Negro Leagues when the MLB’s became integrated in the 1960’s.  The book covers all the major influences and players in the Negro Leagues including owner Rube Foster, Satchel Page, and Jackie Robinson.  At the end of the book is a list of players from the Negro League who made it into the Baseball Hall of Fame as well as those who made it into the majors.

My Impressions: I’m not particularly interested in baseball, but I thought that I’d give this book a try.  It’s easily readable and the illustrations are very well done.  I was surprised that I found the narrative interesting.  My dad was a baseball fan so I had heard of some of the players (Satchel Page, Hank Aaron), but this book gave me a context for where these players came from and what they had to endure to make it to the major leagues.  I think the book is done very well, and I’m sure that students from elementary school to high school will find this an enjoyable and informative read.

Review: Award-winning illustrator and first-time author Nelson’s history of the Negro Leagues, told from the vantage point of an unnamed narrator, reads like an old-timer regaling his grandchildren with tales of baseball greats Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, and others who forged the path toward breaking the race barrier before Jackie Robinson made his historic debut. The narrative showcases the pride and comradery of the Negro Leagues, celebrates triumphing on one’s own terms and embracing adversity, even as it clearly shows the “us” and “them” mentality bred by segregation. If the story is the pitch, though, it’s the artwork that blasts the book into the stands. Nelson often works from a straight-on vantage point, as if the players took time out of the action to peer at the viewer from history, eyes leveled and challenging, before turning back to the field of play. With enormous blue skies and jam-packed grandstands backing them, these players look like the giants they are. The stories and artwork are a tribute to the spirit of the Negro Leaguers, who were much more than also-rans and deserve a more prominent place on baseball’s history shelves. For students and fans (and those even older than the suggested grade level), this is the book to accomplish just that. — Ian Chipman

Library Uses: This book would be great to use in the library during Black History Month or when the World Series is going on.  If the librarian teams up with the art class, they can study the players and create portraits of the players or create scenes inspired by the book’s description. 

References:

Chipman, I. (2008) [Book Review of We Are the Ship by K. Nelson] Retrieved from www.booklistonline.com

Nelson, K. (2008). We are the ship: the story of negro league baseball. New York, NY:                Hyperion Books

Going Bovine by Libba Bray 

Summary: Cameron Smith is a high school junior who scrapes by with a menial fast-food job, mediocre grades, and a lot of pot.  He begins hallucinating and his parents take him to St. Jude’s Hospital where he is diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob’s disease (a.k.a. mad cow disease).  In the hospital, Dulcie, a punk rock angel with a penchant for spray-painting her wings, visits Cameron and sends him on a cross-country road trip to find Dr. X, the one person who could possibly cure Cameron’s disease.

My Impressions: I loved this book.  It was well written and entertaining from start to finish.  I liked how you weren’t entirely sure whether the road trip happened or not until the end of the book.  Everything flowed seamlessly from one chapter to another, and it read as the ultimate spring break road trip.  The book didn’t get into too many details about the disease itself; instead it focused on Cameron’s last big adventure.  I loved how we got to watch Cameron soar to new heights, see him pick himself up when things weren’t going right, worry about his future, and ultimately take off an even bigger adventure.  I can definitely see why this book won the Michael Printz award for young adult literature.

Review: In a giant departure from her Gemma Doyle historical fiction trilogy, Bray’s latest offering is an unforgettable, nearly indefinable fantasy adventure, as immense and sprawling as Cervantes’ Don Quixote, on which it’s based. Here the hero is Cameron, a 16-year-old C-plus-average slacker who likens himself to “driftwood,” but he suddenly becomes the center of attention after he is diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human variant of mad cow disease. In the hospital, he meets Dulcie, an alluring angel clad in fishnet stockings and combat boots, who presents him with a heroic quest to rescue the planet from an otherworldly, evil force. Guided by random signs and accompanied by a teen dwarf named Gonzo, Cameron sets off on a wild road trip across the U.S. to save the world, and perhaps his own life. Talking yard gnomes, quantum physics, cults of happiness, mythology, religion, time travel, the blues, Disney World, the vacuous machine behind reality TV shows, and spring break’s beer-and-bikini culture all figure prominently in the plot, and readers may not feel equally engaged in each of the novel’s lengthy episodes. But Bray’s wildly imagined novel, narrated in Cameron’s sardonic, believable voice, is wholly unique, ambitious, tender, thought-provoking, and often fall-off-the-chair funny, even as she writes with powerful lyricism about the nature of existence, love, and death. Familiarity with Don Quixote certainly isn’t necessary, but those who know the basic plot will want to start over from the beginning and pick up on each sly allusion to the classic story. — Gillian Engberg

Library Uses:  This would be a great book to use as part of a book talk in the library.  I think that a lot of students would really enjoy the story, but they might be intimidated by the size of the book.

Bray, L. (2008). Going Bovine. New York, NY: Delacourte Press

Engberg, G. (2008). [Book Review of Going Bovine by L. Bray] Retrieved from             www.booklistonline.com