You Never Heard of Sandy Koufax?!

by Jonah Winter

Book Overview

In this striking picture book biography, an old-timer tells us what made Sandy Koufax such an amazing baseball player. We learn that the beginning of his career with the Brooklyn Dodgers was rocky,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375837388
• ISBN13: 9780375837388
• Release Date: February 2009
• Publisher: Schwartz & Wade Books
• Length: 40 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 8.7" x 11.5"
• Age Range: 4 to 8 years
• Grade Range: Preschool to Grade 3

Customer Reviews

Once upon a time Sandy Koufax's pitching was wild and crazy, but his personality wasn't!

Sandy was a Jewish kid that grew up in Brooklyn. He was one of those kids who was fabulous at any sport he tried, including baseball, and rumor had it that he could "throw as hard as a pro." It wasn't long before scouts came down to see what this whippersnapper was all about. When Al Campanis invited him to join the Brooklyn Dodgers his answer was faster than his pitch. His pitching was wild and crazy, but his personality wasn't. Now Sandy Koufax was a guy that could make a church mouse sound loud. Even though Don Drysdale and Don Newcombe tried to get him to relax, he still couldn't manage it. At the end of the season he got so disgusted he took his uniform and chucked it right in the trash and "says nothin' to nobody, just leaves. Quitsville." He eventually became the "greatest lefty who ever pitched in the game of baseball," but how did he make a comeback from being a guy who couldn't even control his pitches? This book has a lot of panache and the first person point of view, spoken with a Brooklyn accent, makes this brief baseball biography much more interesting. The full color lenticular cover has a moving illusion of Koufax throwing a strike when you move the book. Sidebars with baseball information and stats are scattered through the book and a concise glossary of baseball terms is in the back.

Almost perfect, but BIG MISTAKE!

Fabulous 3-d cover. Beautifully illustrated. Baseball fans of all ages will love the way the narrator makes the story come alive and the baseball stats, BUT... BIG HISTORICAL INACURACY!! Newcombe was not on the 1960s Dodgers.

The Greatest

A fabulous young adult's book and introduction to the greatest pitcher and one of the country's most distinguished citizens.

Moving (literally)

Mmf. Baseball. Symbolic sports of its ilk get all the good press when it comes to children's books. Tiki Barber books aside, if I were to place odds I'd have to say that a full 50% of kids books about sports concentrate on baseball. After all, its fans are inclined to view a regular game as nothing short of epic. Men in a field. Duking it out under a blazing sun. The intermingling of strength and smarts. Yeah. So basically baseball bores me to tears. I'll sit in on a game anytime you like, but that's just as something to pass the time doing. So when I pick up a book like "You Never Heard of Sandy Koufax?!" I'm looking at it the same way any bored nine-year-old might. I place it on my lap and yell at it, "Okay, book! Impress me! Make me care!" It's a tall order. Lesser books have scuffled their feet and slunk away from the challenge. And for all that the cover of this book is a holographic wonder, I wasn't gonna let some pretty Johnny-come-lately charm me into thinking it was any good right off the bat. You want my love? Thrill me. And darned if Jonah Winter throws that request right back in my face. He's taken Sandy Koufax, a guy I've only vaguely heard mentioned before alongside the word "Dodgers", and has woven a tale of becoming the best through time, effort, and grotesquely swollen limbs. So I am telling you here and now that if you have a kid that loves baseball, or a kid that couldn't care less, whatever the case may be this is the book for them. You never heard of Sandy Koufax? Get ready to. He was just a Jewish kid from Brooklyn, really. Growing up he seemed to be good at every sport he did, but when it came to pitching that Koufax kid was something else. Before long he was hired by the Dodgers and trying to earn his keep. The problem? He wasn't the world's greatest pitcher. "He could throw strikes, but mostly he was nowhere near the strike zone." Even after the Dodgers moved to L.A. he wasn't quite living up to his potential. After the 1960 season he left, even going so far as to throw away his outfit. Fortunately for everyone, when spring training rolled around he was back and in a preseason game against the twins he gave a powerhouse performance. Really let 'em fly. After that, no one could stop him and when he retired young he was a legend in his own right. As the book says, "Who was Sandy Koufax? Sandy Koufax was a guy who finally relaxed enough to let his body do the one thing it was put on this earth to do. And what a thing of beauty that was." A glossary of baseball terms and information on the statistics in this book appear at the end. You might be wondering how it is that I feel I'm qualified to review this book since I have, right from the start, admitted that I'm a baseball naïf. Well, I'll tell ya. I know me some baseball fans. The kinds of people who will tell you breathlessly where they were when such n' such a game played at such n' such a time. The kinds who know the story of S

Great book for baseball-obsessed kids

"You Never Heard of Sandy Koufax?!" Written by Jonah Winter Illustrated by Andre Carrilho (Swartz & Wade Books, 2009) --------------------------------------------------- This is a great book for sports-minded kids, especially baseball fanatics... Personally, I'm not much of a sports fan, but I found this biographical picturebook about pitcher Sandy Koufax to be pretty engrossing... Koufax, one of the first Jewish players to crack into major league baseball, was a flop in his first few years playing for the Dodgers... Then suddenly he caught fire, and was one of the hottest players of the 1960s. Just as suddenly, he decided to quit professional baseball, and abruptly retired, leaving behind one of the best pitching records in the game. This book tells his story, told in the working-class voice of one of his teammates, accompanied by wildly stylish, almost avant-garde artwork from Portugal's Andre Carrilho, whose rubbery lines snap with kinetic motion. The book is also laced with statistics-laden sidebars, the kind of thing that true sports buffs love. This first edition also features gold gilt ink throughout an a dazzling holographic-motion cover (which I doubt will be included in future editions... ) All in all, a classy package -- a perfect present for a budding baseball fan. (Joe Sixpack, ReadThatAgain children's book reviews)