Stew Thornley

This book is also a 990 Lexile. It is about one of the most famous football players. This book talks about Deion Sanders as a young child growing up and becoming not only a famous football player but also a famous baseball player. He is the only athlete in history to play in both the superbowl and in the World Series. He was drafter to the falcons and signed with the New York Yankees. His nickame was Primetime. He went to high school and Florida and went to Florida State University. He is a legacy in sports today.

I only gave this book 4 stars because even though it provided good information, it doesn' provide enough detail. It is interesting to learn about someone who had a dream to play football and base ball at the same time. This is a good book for someone who loves both sports and wants to know how to get started. I was really impressed with how succesful he was in football. Even though he made it in baseball, i was surprised to learn that he had trouble deciding if he wanted one sport more than the other. I hope to be a good player like Deion. He is an inspiration.… (plus d'informations)

This colorful book will be a constant checkout for 2-6th grade students. The color is vibrant and inviting and the pages glossy with great pictures. The captions really add explanation (and this book could be used for teaching caption writing as well). Laying the book out in chapters is valuable as many teachers require their students to read chapter books and this one qualifies.

The information is digestible and the jargon is explained which is a good feature to have for those who don't understand all the technical terms (such as what a point guard is). Having a glossary on these pages would be even more helpful.

This book does have a lot of text, which I find isn't as common with sports biographies for this age group. I would venture to say this book might even be well suited for lower level middle school readers as well.

One thing I liked towards the beginning is the commonality of starting the sentences with "he" which gave a certain rhythm (to keep readers engaged). As it continues though, it starts to feel too repetitive and easy to get fixated on. Also, with books, we are inadvertently trying to teach good writing skills and this book falls short of that. Not that the language needs to be fancy, but at times it feels choppy and simplistic. Also, starting sentences with "But" is just plain frustrating as it wasn't done stylistically (acceptable found in fiction when done right) and teaches bad grammar.

In terms of content, this book was well researched and includes some first person quotes which is a great addition. This biography does a good job of showcasing just enough without overdoing it. something that could have made it a bit less daunting is to play with font variation or have some words highlighted in different fonts or colors. In this age with students, engagement comes down to visual as much as it does content. The images and some side graphics do this, but the font doesn't attempt this same feat.

I really love that he talks about his love of writing poetry and it would have been great if this book would have gone into greater detail about this and maybe other elements of his life off the court to give a well rounded impression of him. He is a pretty motivational character and I think a lot of readers will get that from this book. It is a must for any elementary and middle school library.… (plus d'informations)