From: Tom Hurlburt <tsh>
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1999 09:05:29 -0600

Semi-random thoughts from over the weekend:

Though sports biographies of current stars are outdated almost immediately, and are often written in a pedestrian manner at best, they remain to some of our young male patrons their "lifeline" to reading and visiting the library -- that's all they'll read. Also, we buy biographies of living and working authors, politicians, and other celebrities which suffer from the same currency problems. Can any library claim they have an up-to?te book on President Clinton on their shelves? Former NBA and Marquette University star Glenn "Doc" Rivers teamed with Bruce Brooks a few years back to write a very entertaining sports biography entitled Those Who Love the Game. Brooks adds an interesting twist with his own comments throughout this title.

Dr. Gordon's points on why Matt Christopher books remain popular seem right on the mark. While his writing style isn't inspiring, he usually includes plenty of game action. He also consistently uses the correct sports terminology, and there's nothing as sure to turn off sports fans as getting the feeling that an author doesn't know the sport they are writing about. An aside -- does anyone know how Christopher continues to publish titles even though he died well over a year ago? I checked the jackets of a few of his recent titles and there is no hint if there's a ghostwriter, wheher he left manuscripts, etc.

Finally, a number of comments have been made about sports poetry. They reminded me of the time a number of years ago that a couple of 5th grade boys whined to me about how they were assigned to read poetry. Upon finding out that they were sports fans I showed them Arnold Adoff's Sports Pages, Sharon Mathis Bell's Red Dog, Blue Fly: Football Poems, and Extra Innings: Baseball Poems edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins. These titles made their assignment more palatable.
Received on Mon 11 Jan 1999 09:05:29 AM CST