“A heartfelt, informative, and thoroughly engaging picture book biography.” —School Library Journal (starred review)
From beloved author Sue Macy comes an illustrated biography of Mary Garber, one of the first female sports journalists in American history!
Mary Garber was a pioneering sports journalist in a time where women were rarely a part of the newspaper business. Women weren’t even allowed to sit in the press boxes at sporting events, so Mary was forced to sit with the coaches’ wives. But that didn’t stop her.
In a time when African American sports were not routinely covered, Mary went to the games and wrote about them. Garber was a sportswriter for fifty-six years and was the first woman to receive the Associated Press Sports Editors’ Red Smith Award, presented for major contributions in sports journalism. And now, every year the Association of Women in Sports Media presents the Mary Garber Pioneer Award in her honor to a role model for women in sports media.
Rating: 1-5: (5 is an excellent or a Starred review) 5
Genre: Picture Book Biography
What did you like about the book? Born in 1916, little Mary Garber loved sports, and even became the quarterback of her football team despite her small size and the fact that she was a girl. Combining her love of sports with an affinity for writing led Mary Garber to a career as a sportswriter that ran from the 1940’s until 2002. This upbeat picture book biography tells her story, often quoting Garber or others in her life to demonstrate the kind of person she was. Garber’s big break came during WWII, when so many men went to war that the sports desk at her newspaper became available. Garber made it her practice to cover the games of the colored leagues as well as white. Simply by doing her job well, Garber broke through barriers holding back women from sports reporting and changed the tradition of keeping African-Americans out of her community’s sports pages. An Author’s Note provides a more details about Ms. Garber. End pages include a time line, resources for further information, a list of sources, and footnotes for each quote. Macy conveys well-deserved affection, respect, and admiration for her subject.
Anything you didn’t like about it? No.
To whom would you recommend this book? This would work well as a read aloud along with other books on the theme of “girl power,” the importance of following your dreams, or to demonstrate how one person can change the world.
Who should buy this book? Elementary school libraries and public libraries
Where would you shelve it? File with your other picture book biographies
Should we (librarians/readers) put this on the top of our “to read” piles? Yes, it is very well done.
