Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow - OPTIONAL

Satchel Paige: Striking out Jim Crow by James Sturm, illustrated by Rich Tommaso, 90 pages.  GRAPHIC NOVEL / NON-FICTION Jump at the Sun (Disney), 2007.  $18.  

Content: Language: PG (‘n’ word); Mature Content: G; Violence: PG-13.  

BUYING ADVISORY: MS, HS – OPTIONAL  

AUDIENCE APPEAL: LOW  

Through the eyes of another black baseball player who is retired, Satchel Paige’s popularity is portrayed.  While telling a couple of stories about baseball games in which Paige made a big impression, the prejudice of the deep south is also shown through the actions of two white landowners against a sharecropper.  Paige was a fast and impressive pitcher who liked to take his time on the mound and made a lot of money playing the game.  At a time (the 1920’s) when there was a Negro league, Paige drew a lot of attention and played for many different teams.  

I wanted to love this book and my son who loves baseball was interested by the front cover, but the story line is hard to follow, and the illustrations have no color which makes the story even more confusing.  There are a couple of pages at the back that give more historical background of the time period and the racial situation during Paige’s lifetime, but as far as biography on Satchel Paige, this isn’t very informative.  There is a picture of a lynching and the use of the ‘n’ word. 

Reviewer, C. Peterson