School Library Journal Review

Gr 4-7-Each book provides background on its respective sport, highlights 10 teams with a description of a stellar season, and includes "History Boxes" and biographical sidebars of exceptional players. While all three titles give a lot of good information, especially in the history they include, there are flaws. While Basketball and Baseball include team photos of most of the 10 teams and a roster or partial roster on a nearby page, Hockey doesn't have team pictures or rosters. Also, several photos in each book are not specifically identified. In Basketball, an appendix lists NBA champs starting in 1974, rather than at the beginning of the league in 1949, and the glossary includes "Most Valuable Player," which seems to be fairly self-explanatory. A Denver Nuggets player is identified as Ralph Sampson, member of the ABA, but he was only 16 years old in 1976 when the ABA disbanded, and he never played for the Nuggets. Lawrence S. Ritter's The Story of Baseball (1990), Dave Anderson's The Story of Basketball (1997, both Morrow), George E. Sullivan's All about Hockey (Putnam, 1998), and Mike Kennedy's Ice Hockey (Watts, 2003) are better bets for background material.-Kate Kohlbeck, Randall School, Waukesha, WI (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.