A Dance Like Starlight by Kristy Dempsey

A Dance Like Starlight by Kristy Dempsey, illustrated by Floyd Cooper

Rating: 5 stars

I'll get right to the moral of this story: Dreams do come true.

Don't you just love it already?

Meet one little girl--a little black girl--growing up in the 1960s who wants, more than anything, to be a ballerina.  Her mother works at the ballet school; she cleans and sews costumes there. She is heartbreakingly close to where she wants to be, but is not allowed in. (Do they not have the money? Or is it because black students are not allowed? Dempsey never says, though I infer the latter.) This little girl tries on the costumes, and twirls around and around, practicing moves she's seen but not been taught in the fanciest of all fancy costumes. She wishes on stars and cradles hope for her dream to come true.

"Brava, ma petit," he told me.

One day, while waiting in the wings with her mother during a show, this little girl dances the entire dance, having memorized it from the wings.  The Ballet Master sees her, watches her. When she finishes, he cups her face with his wise, white hands and says, "Brava, ma petite. Brava."

Her hope grows a little.  In Dempsey's words, "That's when hope picked my dream up from the floor of my heart, and it started growing."

The Ballet Master made an arrangement for this little girl to dance in the back of the class each day, one black girl behind many white girls.  But all have the same dream: to become a prima ballerina.

Then one day, her mother tells her that it has happened. The first African American has become a prima ballerina at the Metropolitan Opera House! Her mother scrapes up the money for the two of them to go, to watch Miss Janet Collins on opening night.

It's like she's dancing for me, showing me who I can be.

This one little girl in the audience stands to applaud and yell "Brava!" at the top of her lungs and her hope soars just like Miss Janet Collins soars across the stage.

This is a beautiful book in many ways.  I love the simple story of a little girl dream that might become true, and I love how she works hard for her dream, and doesn't give up on herself. I love how her hope grows and grows and grows throughout the story.

If there is a little dancer in your family, I hope this book finds its way to a shelf near her (or him!).

Something to Prove: The Great Satchel Paige vs Rookie Joe DiMaggio by Robert Skead

Something to Prove: The Great Satchel Paige vs Rookie Joe DiMaggio by Robert Skead, illustrated by Floyd Cooper

Rating: 4 stars

Most of this book flew over my children's heads like one of Satchel Paige's fast balls.  They just aren't old enough.  They are still learning America's history.  They are still learning what prejudice is, let alone how deep racial prejudices once were--and still are, in many ways.  They are only beginning to understand the concept of "proving something," though I sure hope that they are mostly proving that something to themselves.  But let's face it, it'll be more than themselves at some point in their lives.

Satchel Paige was a sensational black pitcher in the 1930s.  Some say that he was the best pitcher that was around during that heyday of American baseball, and still others say he was the best there ever was--then and now.  He pitched in the Negro League, but he was known to anyone who knew anything about baseball.

That included a young, rookie Joe DiMaggio, who was just getting started in his baseball career.  We turn our heads at the name now, but in the late 1930s he was still being watched, still trying to prove his greatness to agents and team managers and other players and, of course, to himself.

"Now I know I can make it with the Yankees. I finally
got a hit off Ol' Satch," he said.  Satch overheard.

Something to Prove chronicles one game in the life of these two men, when their two lives and two careers crossed paths.  New York Yankees general manager Ed Barrow wanted to see how good DiMaggio was, so he wanted DiMaggio to "face the best."  He called Paige.  He was the best, but "because of the color of his skin, he was not permitted to play in the major leagues."

When they do meet--a black team against a white team (the illustrations by Cooper are beautiful works of art)--it's memorable.  Their meeting is eye-opening; the great DiMaggio fares well, but he shows a deep reverence for the greatness he sees and experiences in the awesome pitches that fly his way.  He hits one of four, and is completely proud of that record because, as DiMaggio himself said throughout his career, Satchel Paige was "the best and fastest pitcher I ever faced."

What happens after this one game is sad and unfair, and hard for kids today to really comprehend (in a good way--they don't yet realize that some things are impossible): DiMaggio goes on to become Great, and Satchel Paige returns to the Negro League to be great.  After Jackie Robinson becomes the first black man to play for the major leagues, Paige finally plays for the major leagues for a brief time--at 42!--for the St. Louis Browns.  It is a book that my kids could walk away from, but the sad and unfair aspects to the story are still with me, weeks after I first read it.  That's how you know a good book from a just-fine one: it gets under your skin.

There's so much to be learned in baseball.  So many conversations with our kids to be had about all of this important history, and while Something to Prove is really a book for second and third graders, I'm still grateful it exists to push us to start talking with our kids, and keep talking with them.

P.S.  For more books by Robert Skead, click HERE.