You Never Heard of Willie Mays?! (You Never Heard of...)

by Jonah Winter (Author) Terry Widener (Illustrator)

Reading Level: 2nd − 3rd Grade

Many believe baseball great Willie Mays to be the best player that ever lived. He hit 660 home runs (fourth best of all time), had a lifetime batting average of .302, and is second only to Babe Ruth on The Sporting News's list of "Baseball's 100 Greatest Players."

In Jonah Winter and Terry Widener's fascinating picture book biography, young readers can follow Mays's unparalleled career from growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, to playing awe-inspiring ball in the Negro Leagues and then the Majors, where he was center fielder for the New York (later San Francisco) Giants. Complete with sidebars filled with stats, here is a book for all baseball lovers, young and old. 

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Kirkus

Starred Review
"An all-star gem to share with grandparents, parents, children, baseball fans and anyone else."

ALA/Booklist

Starred Review
"The Say Hey Kid had style to spare, and so does this irrepressible book."

Publishers Weekly

"A must-have for baseball fans."

Review quotes

"Winter's heartfelt, accessible text is infused with immediacy and enthusiasm.... Magnificent biography." —The New York Times Book Review

Starred Review, The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, February 2013:
"Even adults who are indifferent to baseball will likely be so drawn into Mays' story and Winter's rousing text that they'll want to gather up a crowd just to read this one aloud."  

Jonah Winter
Jonah Winter is the award-winning author of more than forty nonfiction picture books that promote environmental awareness and social and racial justice. Among them are The Snow Man; The Little Owl & the Big Tree: A Christmas Story; Oil; The Secret Project; Ruth Bader Ginsburg: The Case of R.B.G. vs. Inequality; My Name is James Madison Hemings; Barack; The Founding Fathers!; and Lillian's Right to Vote, a Jane Addams Children's Book Award recipient and Kirkus Prize finalist.

Raúl Colón has illustrated several highly acclaimed picture books including the New York Times bestselling Angela and the Baby Jesus by Frank McCourt and Susanna Reich's José! Born to Dance, which received a starred review in Booklist. Mr. Colón lived in Puerto Rico as a young boy and now resides in New City, New York, with his family.
Classification
Non-fiction
ISBN-13
9781101934210
Lexile Measure
1010
Guided Reading Level
P
Publisher
Dragonfly Books
Publication date
March 08, 2016
Series
You Never Heard Of...
BISAC categories
JNF018010 - Juvenile Nonfiction | People & Places | United States - African-American
JNF054010 - Juvenile Nonfiction | Sports & Recreation | Baseball & Softball
JNF007100 - Juvenile Nonfiction | Biography & Autobiography | Sports & Recreation
Library of Congress categories
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