Hello Everyone! 

This week I read 42 by Aaron Rosenburg. If you have ever watched the movie, it is based off of the same thing. This is a wonderful historical nonfiction book that would be great for all young readers to read in a history lesson. I have thought about reading this book in my classroom for Black History Month in February. It would be a great novel for students to understand that race and discrimination were huge issues in Jackie Robinson's perspective. 

There are so many great quotes from the novel and movie and I wish that I could say them all. Even though the novel is based on a true story, the author does a really great job about adding emphasis to different scenarios throughout the book. The emphasis that is put on African American people in the story is extremely powerful. I think the author made it this way so that he could really get his point across about the hard lives that these people lived many years ago. The author uses many words that are not socially acceptable to use today, but that is how he got his point across so well. I know it stuck out to me, so a lot of those words would really stick out to kids. I would target this book upper elementary and secondary classrooms. I would be sure that the kids were mature enough to understand the seriousness in the text. 

The novel is geared towards Jackie Robinson being the first African American baseball player to join the major leagues. From the minute he signed to play for the Dodgers, his journey had just begun. The story goes through the many heart wrenching events and scenarios that Robinson and his family had to go through just so that he could play on the major league team. People were not happy that a black man was playing the major leagues and they did not hide their anger either. Jackie Robinson was forced to not say a word or he would immediately be kicked off of the baseball team.