by Sharon Robinson (j Robinson)
You don’t have to be a baseball fan to be a fan of this book. And by the end of the book you are likely to be a Jackie Robinson fan if you weren’t already. Penned by Sharon Robinson, daughter of Jackie Robinson, it is the mostly true story of her father’s friendship with a young boy and his family in 1948.
The book grabs you from the prologue. The father of our main character, Steve Satlow, unexpectedly passes away when Steve is 20, leaving Steve a letter and a box of his memories. One of the most important items being a ticket to the Brooklyn Dodger’s 1948 season opener.
And so the story jumps to 1948, when Jackie Robinson moves into a mostly Jewish neighborhood at the start of the baseball season. While the Jewish neighborhood at first has mixed emotions about a black family moving in, then eight-year-old Steve discovers who is moving in and impatiently watches to catch a glimpse of his baseball hero.
The story then details how a friendship develops between Steve’s family and the Jackie Robinson family. Steve, often in trouble at school, learns a great deal from Robinson and his family about patience and courage. As Steve learns how to deal with adversity, he decides he wants to help others, leading an effort at his school to donate to refugee children through UNICEF. Eventually it inspires Steve to become a doctor and continue helping people throughout his life. We also learn that the close friendship between the families endures throughout the rest of their lives.
Although Sharon Robinson was born in 1950, she depicts a wonderful story of a troubled boy finding patience and what it is to overcome hardships through a story she has been told over the years. As Sharon Robinson says in her afterword: “during these troubling times of global, racial, cultural, and religious unrest, I decided that this classic story of friendship and unity needed to be shared with the next generation of readers.”
[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Child of the Dream, A Memoir of 1963 or Testing the Ice: A True Story About Jackie Robinson, both also by Sharon Robinson.]
[ The Hero Two Doors Down page on the official Sharon Robinson web site ]
Recommended
by Cindy K.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service
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