Review: Awesome Stories of Generosity in Sports by Brad Herzog

SUMMARY FROM NETGALLEY.COM:

About the book:
This collection of amazing true stories highlights generosity in sports. Readers will meet athletes including baseball player Roberto Clemente, who died while bringing aid to Nicaragua following a devastating earthquake. Kids will see generosity in action through the work of Mobolaji Akiode, a former college basketball player in the United States who went on to form basketball camps for girls in her home nation of Nigeria. These twenty tales will inspire young readers and show the importance of generosity.
About the series:
Encourage enthusiasm for reading and inspire positive character development with these powerful stories that highlight character building in sports. The Count on Me: Sports series is a collection of dramatic tales of character in action, bringing together exciting sports history, real-life examples of sports and character building, and lively storytelling. Each book features 20 true stories of athletic challenge, triumph, and sometimes heartbreak—all illustrating and illuminating a positive character trait. Focusing on qualities such as sportsmanship and perseverance, the books explore a wide variety of sports, with historical and contemporary episodes featuring male and female athletes from all around the world. The Count on Me: Sports series demonstrates that character is best defined by the people who display it.
About the author:
Brad Herzog is the author of more than 30 books for children, including more than two dozen sports books. He has also published three travel memoirs and a fourth book for adults, The Sports 100, which ranks and profiles the 100 most important people in U.S. sports history. For his freelance magazine writing (including for Sports Illustrated and Sports Illustrated for Kids), Brad has won three gold medals from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. Brad travels all over the country visiting schools as a guest author. He lives on California’s Monterey Peninsula with his wife and two sons.

MY TAKE:
This book was as inspiring as you would expect it to be.

In Awesome Stories of Generosity in Sports, readers are told the tales of generosity of various athletes and teams. Each story includes the sport of the person or team, the year, and the place where the act of generosity took place.

The book is easy to read, as you would expect of a book aimed at a younger audience, and I breezed right through it. The stories were well-written and I wasn't bored even once. All of the stories were inspiring, though some were more inspiring than the others. My favorite story was the first one, about Jeremy Bloom's Wish of a Lifetime. It sounded like a wonderful organization, kind of like a Make-A-Wish foundation for old people. It certainly got me thinking about helping out that organization and others in some way.

I thought the addition of the index at the end was a little strange, but if you're looking for a particular athlete, organization, or sport, it will probably come in handy.

Thanks to NetGalley and Free Spirit Publishing for the e-ARC.

THE GOOD:

1. All the stories are inspiring.
2. The stories are interesting.
3. You'll learn about some amazing athletes. 

THE BAD:

1. It would be nicer if the pictures were in full color. 

FAVORITE QUOTE/S:

After all, Arthur Ashe's tennis talents gave him the chance to help many other. But the man who taught Ashe to play the game? That man was named Ronald Charity.

READ IT IF:

1. Your child is an athlete.
2. You want your child to be inspired to do good.
3. Your child likes reading happy stories. 

RATING:


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