• Fri. Oct 4th, 2024

Hotlight Spotlight – Dan Gutman and Athletes of Color

ByPam

I love Dan Gutman!

It’s no secret around here that I love books with multicultural characters.  What IS a secret, however, is that I love Dan Gutman!

Dan Gutman and Me

I had the pleasure of meeting Dan Gutman a while back and I wanted to share a few of his great books with you.  You may know him from the My Weird School Daze series but he has written many more books. What’s so great about them is they are multicultural! The series I’m referring to is the Baseball Card Adventure series. Within the series, our protagonist, young Stosh, goes back in time (gotta love time travel!) and meets famous baseball players like Jim Thorpe, Honus Wagner, Babe Ruth, Satch, and Roberto Clemente.

I love that Gutman weaves history into the stories and teaches readers about the difficulties these multicultural players experienced.  The book I’m holding is Jim and Me, about Native American Jim Thorpe.  I wanted to get my hands on Roberto Clemente’s book, having grown up in Pittsburgh during his time, but all the kiddies snatched up the books before I could grab mine!

To be sure, I love the idea of Native American’s being featured in pop literature.  I wish there were more.

What’s your favorite Dan Gutman book?