Just Like Josh Gibson

The girl-playing-sports picture book exists, no question. Scanning the shelves of your local library you'll find one or two of that specific genre. But how many picture books are historical looks at girls playing sports? Few. And how many cite specific historical characters, like the legendary African-American baseball player Josh Gibson? Fewer. Definitely fewer. Finally, how many are worth reading to your kids over and over, filled with impressive pastel illustrations? Very few indeed.Enter "Just Like Josh Gibson". Another worthy picture book from the multi-talented and remarkably gifted Angela Johnson. Book editors like to pair Johnson with an array of different illustrators, and it is just our luck that the one chosen for this particular book is the multi-talented Beth Peck. The story is told by a grandmother to her granddaughter about her baseball playing past. Here we see the grandmother as a skinny black child in a long pink dress. Taught to play baseball by her father she's a natural at the game. The balls she hits soar out of sight, though those watching her chant to themselves, "But too bad she's a girl... Too bad she's a girl...". The girl's chance comes at last when one of the boys, her cousin Danny, on a local baseball team hurts his arm. Changing into her cousin's shoes (pink dress still firmly in place), she wins the game and remembers years later how good it felt to hear the cheers while stealing home. The book ends with a historical note about the legendary Josh Gibson (a player that the Grandmother always idolized) as well as additional information (well cited) about the role of women in the game. I was especially interested in learning that a woman once played in the Negro Leagues when slugger Hand Aaron left to join the Braves. But as the book itself points out, "the gender barrier to the `big leagues' still exists". It's refreshing to read a book that identifies and decries an inequality that exists to this very day. Few books written for adults make such charges, let alone picture books for kids. Accompanying Johnson's narration are Peck's pastels. Set against a backdrop of stark houses and outhouses, the pictures are beautiful. One picture in particular caught my attention. There's a moment where the little girl has swung her baseball bat and is looking off into the distance with the catcher and the umpire as it soars. Just look at the drawings in this scene. Peck's careful use of lines slash and cut to make the girl's dress appear to have folds, stretched fabric, and momentum as well. Now that's just good drawing. In the end, I suspect "Just Like Josh Gibson" will be relegated to the pile of forgotten children's classics someday. But if you know any child that loves sports, and baseball in particular, I urge you pick up this book. It does more to advance the cause of women in sports for little children than anything else I've read in a long time.