Review of
Little
League Heroes, by Curtis Bishop
Five out of five stars
Joel Carroll is
an African-American boy that is trying out for the West Austin Little League.
He is one of eighteen boys that are vying for only two open positions, for this
is a league where there are more boys than can be placed on a team, so only the
best will be selected. He manages to impress the coach/manager by his hitting
and bunting abilities, for he is very poor at judging fly balls. His natural
position is catcher, but his team has the best catcher in the league.
After his
selection, Joel experiences some racial prejudice from the other boys, but the
main source is from the parents. One man in particular withdraws funding for
maintaining the field, forcing the use of volunteers. His father Marty drills
the rules of “colored behavior circa 1960” into Joel, meaning that he is not to
react to racial slurs or fight back when provoked. He is the first
African-American player to play in the league, so within his neighboring
circle, he is playing the role of Jackie Robinson.
There are two
tracks to this story, the action of Joel’s team as it competes for the title
and Joel’s experiences in being a racial pioneer. His father keeps him grounded
in reality and he gains a very valuable white friend that helps him when he is in
serious difficulties. There is a big game at the end, yet it is handled in a
far different way than in other books. Joel is a hero, but it is a total
experience and not just a consequence of one action on the field.
From receiving
some of the milder racial slurs, to having parents pull their children and
finding from the league rather than allow them to play with a “colored” child
to unwarranted police suspicion, many of the problems that African-Americans
face are a part of Joel’s experiences. Yet, there are white heroes in this book,
specifically the league officials that will not deviate from the rules that
allow boys like Joel to play no matter what the threat.
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