I Am #8: Roberto Clemente
Roberto Clemente, a baseball player for the Pittsburgh Pirates who met an untimely end in 1972, represents that far too rare figure in modern professional sports: a true role model of humanitarianism. This approachable bio opens with an imaginary autobiographical introduction summarizing Clemente’s life in a first-person narrative. Then the more detailed story begins in Clemente’s birthplace in Puerto Rico, where he learned his sport with makeshift equipment. As a young man, Clemente experienced segregation in the Deep South early in his profession, and he became the first real Latino superstar of the sport due to his prowess both at the plate and on the field. This engaging chronicle ends with his tragic death in a plane crash at the height of his career, as he was attempting to deliver aid to victims of an earthquake in Nicaragua. An annotated gallery of important characters and eight chapters of equal length help make this a manageable, pleasurable entry in the I Am series. Grades 3-5. --Erin Anderson