Featuring lively verse, fascinating facts, and archival photographs, here is a celebration of the Negro Leagues and the great players who went unrecognized in their time written by Children's Literature Legacy Award winner Carole Boston Weatherford. Imagine that you are an outstanding baseball player but banned from the major leagues. Imagine that you are breaking records but the world ignores your achievements. Imagine having a dream but no chance to make that dream come true. This is what life was like for African American baseball players before Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball's color barrier. Meet Josh Gibson, called "the black Babe Ruth," who hit seventy-five home runs in 1931; James "Cool Papa" Bell, the fastest man in baseball; legendary Satchel Paige, who once struck out twenty-four batters in a single game; and, of course, Jackie Robinson, the first black player in Major League Baseball, and one of the greatest players of all time. Written by acclaimed author Carole Boston Weatherford with a foreword by Buck O'Neil, a Negro leagues legend whose baseball contributions spanned eight decades, this book is a home run for baseball and history lovers, and makes a great gift for both boys and girls. Grade 4-7–An engaging overview, richly augmented by archival photographs. Weatherford's text covers a great deal of ground, with a summation of the history of the Negro Leagues and sections on the pitchers, hitters, utility men, various teams, and so forth. Each topic is briefly covered on a spread of text with black-and-white photos and full-color realia designed to look like a scrapbook. Topics are introduced with a few lines of verse. Beginning with a thoughtful foreword by Buck O'Neil, the book is especially successful in conveying the significance of the Negro Leagues to the black community, and in detailing the realities of segregation. The stark scenes of segregated drinking fountains and signs advertising "Cabins for Colored" are powerful and poignant. The overall tone is upbeat, focusing on the accomplishments of players such as Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard, James "Cool Papa" Bell, and the three women who joined the league in the 1950s. This title succeeds as a thoughtful introduction, capturing both the significance of the Negro Leagues and the accomplishments of its great players. Fans and report writers will also want to check out Patricia C. and Frederick L. McKissack's Black Diamond (Scholastic, 1994), Robert Gardner and Dennis Shortelle's The Forgotten Players (Walker, 1993), and Michael L. Cooper's Playing America's Game (Penguin, 1993). –Marilyn Taniguchi, Beverly Hills Public Library, CA Gr. 2-4. Buck O'Neil, Chairman of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and former player and manager, leads off with a sprightly introduction to pages of sepia, black-and-white, and color photographs and images laid out in this attractive scrapbook presentation. Each spread begins with a rhyming, almost rap-style couplet, which is effective if occasionally clunky. Set against backgrounds that range from plain matte white to textured and colored papers, short running text, sidebars, quotes, and backgrounds survey the Negro Leagues from 1887, when the owners of major league ball agreed not to hire any more black players, to Jackie Robinson's signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. Hall of Famers who came from the Negro Leagues and the first blacks on major league teams are just two of the topics covered in the many informational boxes. A lively presentation; give it credit for at least a triple. GraceAnne DeCandido Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved "Weatherford has collected a wealth of information and memorabilia from the earliest days through the Leagues' demise in 1963.... one doesn't need to be a baseball fan to be fascinated." — Kirkus Reviews "An engaging overview, richly augmented by archival photographs... this title succeeds as a thoughtful introduction, capturing both the significance of the Negro Leagues and the accomplishments of its great players." — School Library Journal "Public and school libraries will want to add this to their collections, as material on the Negro Leagues is fairly scarce for this age group." — Library Media Connection New York Times  best-selling author  Carole Boston Weatherford’s  60-plus books include the Caldecott Honor book  Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre , for which she was awarded the Coretta Scott King Author Award and a Sibert Honor; the Newbery Honor winner  Box; and the Caldecott Honor winners  Freedom in Congo Square, Fannie Lou Hamer, and  Moses . She won a Coretta Scott King Author Honor for  Becoming Billie Holiday . Weatherford teaches at Fayetteville State University in North Carolina. Visit cbweatherford.com.