From Booklist
Gr. 2-4, younger for reading aloud. Roberto Clemente played most of his major-league baseball career in the shadow of the slightly older Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, and Hank Aaron, emerging only in the early 1970s as the premier player in the game. Then tragedy struck. In 1972, Clemente's plane, carrying aid to earthquake victims in Central America, crashed off the shores of his native Puerto Rico. Winter tells the unabashedly inspirational story of how Clemente's passionate love of the game and unrivaled work ethic took him from poverty in Puerto Rico (his first baseball glove was made from a coffee-bean sack) to World Series triumph with the Pittsburgh Pirates and, later, after his death, to near-mythic status as a role model for young Latino ballplayers. Soaked in pastoral greens and browns, Colon's evocatively grainy, soft-focus illustrations, rendered with a mix of watercolors, colored pencils, and litho pencils, capture perfectly the worlds in which Clemente was most at home: the tropics and the baseball diamond. Baseball history brought vividly to life for a younger audience. Bill Ott
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Book Description
On an island called Puerto Rico a boy named Roberto Clemente dreamed of nothing but winning at baseball. With no money -- but plenty of determination -- Clemente practiced on muddy fields with a glove made from a coffee sack. Little League became minor league, which turned into winter league...and, finally, he made it to the major leagues! With lightning speed, towering home runs, and grand slams, Clemente introduced himself to America. Spare, evocative language -- and magnificent illustrations -- tell the story of a great athlete and even greater man who rose through the ranks of baseball to become one of the most admired players of all time.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Winter's (Fair Ball!: 14 Great Stars from Baseball's Negro Leagues) uneven narrative offers an overview of baseball great Clemente. The opening spreads introduce Roberto as a child in Puerto Rico, with "very little/ but a fever to play/ and win at baseball." He made a bat from a guava tree branch and fashioned a glove from a coffee-bean sack. The narrative quickly moves to Pittsburgh, where Clemente played for the Pirates, and his finesse on the field helped this last-place team go on to win the World Series his first season there (unfortunately, the text does not specify which year). Fueling the player's desire to excel at the game, Winter suggests, was the fact that although adored by his fans, Clemente did not receive respect or credit from American sportswriters (" `It's because I'm black, isn't it?"/ .../ It's because I am Puerto Rican,' " he asks the "sneering reporters"). The narrative highlights his "one-man show" during the 1971 World Series, in which the Pirates beat the favored Baltimore Orioles, and his 3,000th hit in 1972. Clemente's story ends tragically when his plane crashed as he headed to Central America to aid earthquake victims there. Rendered in watercolor, colored pencils and litho pencils, Colon's (A Band of Angels) art is inconsistent, juxtaposing evocative, richly textured and warmly hued paintings with less successful pen-and-inks. For baseball fans, this spotty biography leaves out many of the tantalizing details on the field, while newcomers may find Clemente's personality curiously distant and vague. Ages 4-8. (Mar.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews