We Are The Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball, written and illustrated by Kadir Nelson

Historical Non-fiction

This Coretta Scott King Award winner is a wonderful illustration about the love of the favorite American past time, baseball!  This non-fiction intermediate book is about the negro league of baseball and it discusses how the league paved the way for African-American's today.  It talks about the great Jackie Robinson and introduces many players from the early twentieth century, who I had never heard of.  I love this book because of the beautiful and realistic oil paintings done by Nelson and for its story of perseverance.  African-Americans were treated badly then, but they kept on playing because they loved baseball.  I think the author does a great job of retelling the strength of African-American players because they kept on pushing forward, no matter what the consequences were, which is a great lesson for students!  This is actually the first book Nelson wrote.  Before We are the Ship he only illustrated books.

Response questions...
1.  Who was Rube Foster and why was he significant?
2.  How are the major leagues of baseball different today than in the past?

In the classroom...
1.  Have children play an indoor game of baseball and sequence or retell the story with each base they run.
2.  Do a writing prompt where students discuss a similar struggle they faced, and how they came through it.

About the author...
Kadir Nelson was first known as an artist, but has recently written books such as Baby Bear and Nelson Mandela.  It took him eight years to complete this book, and he currently lives in California with his wife and children.

References:
Nelson, Kadir.  (2008). We are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball.  New York:  Jump at the Sun Hyperion.

www.kadirnelson.com