Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
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I LLINO S UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN PRODUCTION NOTE University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library Large-scale Digitization Project, 2007. University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Science Books make great gifts, but Dick- ing the perfect books for your favorite youngsters can be daunt- ing. Let the expert staff of The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books help you navigate the book- store wilderness full of shiny new children's books. Updated and expanded from last year's edi- tion, the Guide Book to Gift Books contains annotations for over 225 of the best books for giving (and receiving) and is available as a downloadable PDF file that you can print out and use for every holiday, birthday, or other gift-giving occasion on your calendar this year. Listed books have all been recommended in full Bulletin reviews from the last three years and are verified as currently in print. Entries are divided into age groups and include au- thor, title, publisher, and the current list price. To purchase, go to: www.lis.uiuc.edu/giftbooks/ ___ THE BULLETIN OF THE CENTER FOR CHILDREN'S BOOKS July/August 2004 Vol. 57 No. 11 A LOOK INSIDE 451 THE BIG PICTURE ChiefSunrise,John McGraw, andMe by Timothy Tocher 452 NEW BOOKS FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE Reviewed titles include: 452 * Thura's Diary: My Life in Wartime Iraq by Thura Al-Windawi; tr. by Robin Bray 463 * Who Am I Without Him?: Short Stories about Girls and the Boys in Their Lives by Sharon G. Flake 463 * Sidewalk Circus by Paul Fleischman; illus. by Kevin Hawkes 475 * Remember: The Journey to School Integration by Toni Morrison 489 * The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog! written and illus. by Mo Willems 491 SUBJECT AND USE INDEX 493 ANNUAL AUTHOR AND TITLE INDEX EXPLANATION OF CODE SYMBOLS USED WITH REVIEWS * Asterisks denote books of special distinction. R Recommended. Ad Additional book of acceptable quality for collections needing more material in the area. M Marginal book that is so slight in content or has so many weaknesses in style or format that it should be given careful consideration before purchase. NR Not recommended. SpC Subject matter or treatment will tend to limit the book to specialized collections. SpR A book that will have appeal for the unusual reader only. Recommended for the special few who will read it. The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (ISSN 0008-9036) is published monthly except August by the Publications Office of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and distributed by the University of Illinois Press, 1325 S. Oak, Champaign, IL 61820-6903. REVIEWING STAFF Deborah Stevenson, Editor (DS) Betsy Hearne, Consulting Editor and Faculty Liaison Elizabeth Bush, Reviewer (EB) Timnah Card, Reviewer (TC) Karen Coats, Reviewer (KC) Janice M. Del Negro, Reviewer (JMD) Krista Hutley, Reviewer (KH) Hope Morrison, Reviewer (HM) Reviewers' initials are appended to reviews. OFFICE STAFF Molly Dolan Krista Hutley Hope Morrison SUBSCRIPTION RATES 1 year, institutions, $75.00; multiple institutional subscriptions, $70 for the first and $50 for each additional; individuals, $50.00; students, $15.00. In countries other than the United States, add $7.00 per subscription for postage. Japanese subscription agent: Kinokuniya Company Ltd. Single copy rate: $7.50. Volumes available in microfilm from ProQuest, 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Complete volumes available in microfiche from Johnson Associates, P.O. Box 1017, Greenwich, CT 06830. Subscription checks should be made payable to the University of Illinois Press. All notices of change of address should provide both the old and new address. Postmaster: Send address changes to The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, University of Illinois Press, 1325 S. Oak, Champaign, IL 61820-6903. All inquiries about subscriptions and advertising should go to University of Illinois Press, 1325 S. Oak, Champaign, IL 61820-6903, 217-333-0950; toll free 866-244-0626. Review copies and all correspondence about reviews should be sent to Deborah Stevenson, The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, 501 E. Daniel St., Champaign, IL 61820-6601. Email: [email protected]; phone: 217-244-0324. Visit our homepage at http://www.lis.uiuc.edu/puboff/bccb Periodicals postage paid at Champaign, Illinois © 2004 by The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois Drawings by Debra Bolgla. This publication is printed on acid-free paper. Cover illustration by Greg Copeland from ChiefSunrise,John McGraw, and Me ©2004. Used by permission of Cricket Books. JULY/AUGUST 2004 * 451 THE BIG PICTURE Chief Sunrise, John McGraw, and Me by Timothy Tocher Every teacher knows these students, and every librarian knows these patrons-the kids who won't touch a novel unless it involves nine guys whacking and whipping a hardball around a diamond. Fortunately, it's no great challenge to find worthy titles to recommend, from Carl Deuker's tense contemporary morality tales (most recently, High Heat, BCCB 6/03) to John Ritter's ought-to-be-classic historical fiction Choosing Up Sides (6/98). Now add to the roster this fast-paced fictional road trip with the 1919 New York Giants, perfectly pitched to summer readers who fill their downtime from playing baseball with . reading baseball. Tacitly acknowledging that middle-graders don't allow authors much warm-up time, Tocher hurls readers right into the action. Fifteen-year-old Hank Cobb, as he's chosen to call himself, is fed up hopping freight trains with his good- for-nothing father, and in one life-altering moment, he seizes his chance for free- dom and lets his old man drop from the side of a boxcar. Within minutes of that irrevocable act Hank finds himself in the company of another rail rider, who calls himself Chief Sunrise, "the greatest Indian to ever step on a baseball diamond, pitching immortal in the making." Hank shares Chiefs passion for the game and, his wariness overcome by curiosity and lack of better options, he willingly joins Chief on his multi-state odyssey to track down Giants manager John McGraw and hustle a slot in the lineup. Catching up with the team isn't easy, and Hank and Chief keep body and soul together unloading trucks, running a con with a travel- ing fair, cleaning stadium seats and working as a bouncer in the stands, until the big break comes and Chief finds himself on the mound. He is, as predicted, a triumph, but his reluctance to provide personal background for prying reporters puts McGraw on alert. It takes naive Hank longer than the savvy manager to learn that Chief is actually a black man passing as a Seminole, and by then Chief has again changed his identity and gone off to join the newly formed Negro National League. Tocher creates two intriguingly ambiguous characters-a boy who doesn't know his real name and a man who won't reveal his-and masterfully positions them in a post-World War I America (the book includes a historical note) where everything from the broad social order to the narrower field of sportsmanship smacks of flimflam. As Hank patiently waits his turn for the sports section, he leafs through newspaper stories of returning veterans who find their jobs gone and of black citizens for whom the global battle for democracy has been rendered ludi- crous by home-grown bigotry. In major-league baseball, public heroes privately mistrust their managers and parlay their salary gripes into thrown games, and re- porters fill the holes in players' vitae with any story they think will sell. Farther 452 * THE BULLETIN down the baseball food chain, all-girl teams like the Bloomers (with whom Hank puts in a hilarious game as shortstop, until the pitcher loses his temper and his wig in a small town match-up) are none too persnickety about the gender of their ringers. And any reader who's ever swung at a change-up will appreciate Tocher's take on the feints endemic to the game itself-the bogus signals, the stolen bases, the stalls for time, the pitches with unfathomable trajectories. Tocher never loses sight of the line between amusing roguery and pernicious deceit, though. Hank's stint with the Bloomers and Chiefs shameless fleecing of shooting-gallery patrons at a backwater carnival are broadly drawn with a wink and a grin, but there's nothing laughable here about the racism that forces Chief to hide his identity in order to bring his prodigious ability into a proper arena, or about Hank's father's efforts (from his new quarters at Sing Sing) to blackmail Chief into fixing a game. Unlikely buddies are a dime a dozen in the world of fiction, but Hank and Chiefs story, which begins in a shadowy boxcar and ends with an uncertain future, gains freshness and credibility from Tocher's restrained delineation of friend- ship. In the end, readers know little more about Chief than when they first met- save for his name (which now scarcely seems to matter), his indisputable talent, his own rules of integrity, and his concern for Hank, which, though clearly genuine, is realistically limited by his professional ambitions. Chief cannot haul Hank along with him on the road to success, but he does leave him on the shoulder, facing the right direction. That, and a season's worth of memories, is more than enough. (Imprint information appears on p. 487.) Elizabeth Bush, Reviewer NEW BOOKS FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE AL-WINDAWI, THURA Thura's Diary: My Life in Wartime Iraq; tr.