You Never Heard of Sandy Koufax?!

You Never Heard of Sandy Koufax?! by Jonah Winter

The title of this book is a challenge which kids will find hard to resist.  Despite parents, teachers and librarians begging kids not to judge a book by the cover, this cover will captivate young readers.  Oh sure, from here it looks like some old baseball player on the mound.  But in real life, this is shiny and flashy; you tilt the book and Koufax pitches the ball.

Luckily, what this book has on the inside is every bit as worthwhile as its eye-catching packaging.  Winter focuses on just a small snapshot of Koufax’s life; this is no boring womb to tomb biography. Instead, it’s a story of perseverance, great talent that needed hard work to be refined, overcoming adversity and the age old contradiction of life being amazing, wonderful and not fair all at once.

So, maybe you never heard of Sandy Koufax.   Maybe all you know is that he was a Dodger.  But by the end of this book, you’ll know how he was an unlikely hero: a Jewish man playing baseball during a time of discrimination; a fast ball pitcher whose fast ball wasn’t enough.  Except for when it was too much and destroyed his body.  Baseball fans know Koufax as a baseball legend, but now new generations will learn his story.

The book has a conversational tone, plus great extras like call out boxes with facts and stories, a glossary of baseball terms and web addresses of statistical sources.

Great for: Jewish sports heroes can be hard to come by, so it’s great to get a book that doesn’t ignore Koufax’s religion, nor make it the sole story.

Sex, Nudity, Dating – None.
Profanity – “heck”, the author reports that people said “things I can’t repeat” about Koufax because he was Jewish. It gets the point across without having to resort to printing racist slurs.
Death, Violence and Gore – Guys knock players down to keep them from scoring.
Drugs, Alcohol and Smoking – Koufax had to take painkillers for injuries, but no addiction or misuse is implied.
Frightening or Intense Things – None.