Pride of Puerto Rico: The Life of Roberto Clemente
Grade 4-8 Clemente, an outstanding baseball player and a complicated man, makes a fascinating subject for a biography. The early chapters of this book, which tell of Clemente's childhood in Puerto Rico, are marred by an excess of fictionalized dialogue and oversimplification. The book improves, however, as it describes Clemente's years in the major leagues. His struggles with injuries and the prejudices of his managers and the press are told in detail. Clemente emerges, at the end of the book, from his status as baseball's most underrated ballplayer to recognition as one of the game's all-time greats. Clemente's compassion is not overlooked. He did much to help young people in his native Puerto Rico, and was on his way to assist earthquake victims in Nicaragua when he died in a plane crash in 1972. Unfortunately, the biography has no illustrations, and the drawing on the jacket looks nothing like Clemente. A helpful chart of Clemente's career statistics is included, along with a less helpful bibliography. The lack of an index is a weakness. On the whole, this is an enjoyable and informative biography of Clemente, although the description of his career as a player is better than the description of his childhood. Todd Morning, Schaumburg Township Public Library, Ill.Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.