1 In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson

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Spaghetti Book Club - Book Reviews by Kids for Kids

In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson

Written by Bette Boa Lord


Reviewed by Jackie D. (age 10)


In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson

All aboard! The ship captain of the boat shouts. Shirley Temple Wong and her family are moving from China to New York. When Shirley first comes to America she has a really hard time speaking English and making friends. She learns a game called baseball which completely changes her life. She starts to make friends and plays baseball with them. Shirley starts being called "Jackie Robinson" because of her excellent baseball skills. Jackie Robinson becomes her hero. She listens to his games on the radio. America is no longer strange to her. Now she calls it the Land of Opportunity.

I enjoyed reading this book because I liked seeing how a person could change throughout the book. For example, Shirley hated America at the beginning and at the end she called it the Land of Opportunity. At the beginning of the book I was wondering if Shirley was going to make any friends or learn to adjust to America. Shirley ended up being part of a baseball team and was successful at making friends. This story reminds me when my cousin moved out of the country. My cousin had similar experiences as Shirley.

I would recommend this book to people at the age of 9 and up. In some parts it was hard to picture what a ten-year-old girl was going through. The Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson was an enjoyable historical fiction book.