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A Strong Right Arm
Michelle Y. Green Puffin Books © 2002
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“Oh, another book about the Negro Leagues,” I said to myself, in a bored, judgmental way, when I first picked up this book. In my academic career, it seems a year can’t pass without a project on these Negro Leagues. Before I read this book, I considered myself somewhat the expert, but A Strong Right Arm definitely proved me wrong. I had never known that a woman could play in the Negro Leagues. The book held my attention through its pages of Mamie Johnson’s baseball story.
It’s written in a very interesting style. The book is a biography, yet it is authored by a lady, Michelle Green, who had met Mamie Johnson, the subject of this book, at a hobby sale and asked for rights to the biography. With Mamie’s help, Michelle produced this book, which would seem to be historical fiction, but is entirely true.
I was surprised at how little I really knew about this field of information! Now, I don’t overestimate myself as much. If this year, my seventh grade year, proves to be anything like years past, now I will be able to spout random facts about the Negro Leagues ceaselessly. If asked to do a project, I may even choose Mamie Johnson to star in mine. I would recommend this book to anyone in elementary or middle school who knows anything about the Negro Leagues, especially if you want to learn more about an amazing but widely unknown woman who twisted history in her own special way.
~ Emma Shebat, grade 7, Canfield Village Middle School