Waiting for Pumpsie

Reviewed by: Phyllis Fuchs - Curtis Memorial Library, Brunswick, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date: April 30, 2018

Review

This is a first picture book by an author who was eight years old when he heard the name Pumpsie Green. An eye catching jacket cover created by the book's illustrator shows a small black boy smiling as he looks out at Fenway Park during a game. The colorful illustrations are done in acrylic paint with touches of colored pencil. The boy tells the true story of the Red Sox having been the last major baseball team to hire black baseball players and of the excitement and pride the boy feels when Pumpsie Green, the first black Red Sox player, plays at Fenway Park. This is a timely book as well as historical. A racial incident is described that happens at Fenway Park in 1959 when the boy, his younger sister, and his parents are shouted at and insulted by two white men sitting behind the family. A policeman appears and scolds the family, not the two men. That kind of incident continues to occur, all too often, and not just at Fenway Park, in 2018. The jacket alone will cause youngsters' hands, boys' especially, to reach for this book. Both an author's note and sources are appended as well as a suggestion that readers can find a list of the first black players on each major -league team by searching online. Readers may wish to know more about Pumpsie's unusual name but overall, the book is recommended to all young baseball fans of about eight years up.

Overall Book Score: good