Roberto Clemente : Pride of the Pittsburgh Pirates

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Gr. 2-4, younger for reading aloud. Roberto Clemente played most of his major-league baseball career in the shadow of the slightly older Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, and Hank Aaron, emerging only in the early 1970s as the premier player in the game. Then tragedy struck. In 1972, Clemente's plane, carrying aid to earthquake victims in Central America, crashed off the shores of his native Puerto Rico. Winter tells the unabashedly inspirational story of how Clemente's passionate love of the game and unrivaled work ethic took him from poverty in Puerto Rico (his first baseball glove was made from a coffee-bean sack) to World Series triumph with the Pittsburgh Pirates and, later, after his death, to near-mythic status as a role model for young Latino ballplayers. Soaked in pastoral greens and browns, Colon's evocatively grainy, soft-focus illustrations, rendered with a mix of watercolors, colored pencils, and litho pencils, capture perfectly the worlds in which Clemente was most at home: the tropics and the baseball diamond. Baseball history brought vividly to life for a younger audience. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Book Description
On an island called Puerto Rico a boy named Roberto Clemente dreamed of nothing but winning at baseball. With no money -- but plenty of determination -- Clemente practiced on muddy fields with a glove made from a coffee sack. Little League became minor league, which turned into winter league...and, finally, he made it to the major leagues! With lightning speed, towering home runs, and grand slams, Clemente introduced himself to America. Spare, evocative language -- and magnificent illustrations -- tell the story of a great athlete and even greater man who rose through the ranks of baseball to become one of the most admired players of all time.


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Growing up in Puerto Rico, Roberto Clemente dreamed of playing baseball. Too poor for regulation equipment, he hit soup cans with a tree branch. In spite of his obvious talent, throughout his career with the Pittsburgh Pirates, newspaper writers questioned his ability and used Latino stereotypes to denigrate him. The sheer brilliance of his play in 1971 and 1972 finally awakened the media to his greatness. Sadly, before he could bask in the adulation, he was killed in a plane crash while flying to aid victims of an earthquake. Winter employs straightforward, powerful language to capture the essence of the man. Each two lines of text are separated by a blank line, giving the appearance and cadence of poetry. Colon enhances the text with a variety of techniques, including mixing black and white and color pages and repeating images from different perspectives. A well-constructed introduction to a compassionate, dignified, multi-talented sports hero. (Picture book/biography. 6-10)


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