The Streak How Joe DiMaggio Became America's Hero

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Book Information

Category
Non-Fiction
Reader Personality Type
Illustrator
Publisher
Calkins Creek (An Imprint of Highlights)
Curriculum
Social Emotional Learning

Can you really succeed?  Do you really have what it takes to achieve your dreams?  Is it somehow easier for everyone else that it is for you?  What is it like to be one of those big sports stars who has everyone cheering for her or him?

Here is a chance to answer some of those all-important questions and those answers come in a most engaging, informative, inspiring story of a baseball player during the summer of 1941.  His name was Joe Dimaggio and this was the summer when he had an amazing streak of hits that held the nation's attention and offered us a hero we needed in a time of fear and peril.

Joe Dimaggio was playing for the New York Yankees and on the fifteenth of May, he stepped quietly to the plate and got a single to left field.  The Yankees lost that game 13-1 and "no one knew it, but that one hit was something special - the start of the most perfect summer in baseball."

 What is happening around you right now that might actually be the start of something amazing?  That one little hit started a string of hits and hit by hit, Joe's streak began to gain some notice.  While Joe starts hitting in two games, seven games, twenty games, across the ocean the war is beginning to rage in Europe.   

Who is this guy?  Is he somehow different from the rest of us?  Is he made of magical stuff?  Well, in a way yes he is.  He is made of something magical called determination.  Joe built himself a "magical" bat named Betsy Ann.   He spent hours on it until "she fit his hands alone"  and he only used Betsy Ann to bat.  So was it the bat that made Joe Dimaggio so much better than everyone else?

Day by day Joe is out there coming up to the plate.  Was he nervous?  Would you be nervous?  Was he confident?  Would you be confident?  Do you think he was a hero?  What makes someone a hero?

Threaded with the human side of the story, this impressionist illustrations and storyline share the gritty side of pressure and deliver a wonderfully human tale and message that Joe DiMaggio was exceptional and Joe DiMaggio was unique but most importantly that you can feel all the fears and you can be incredibly nervous and that never needs to stop you from doing your best and reaching as far as you can into your own potential.

This is a marvelously inspirational biography that is so needed by our young readers who see only the glitz and gleam of the world of major league sports or world of celebrity in general.  It takes hard work and a spirit that is willing to risk failure and both of those very important gifts live inside of you.

 

978-1590789926   Ages  6-10  32 pages

Recommended by:  Barb

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