Common Sense Note
Some background on DiMaggio and the period will help kids get more out of this. Written in free verse, it will appeal to reluctant readers because it's short, but it's literary, and packs a lot of meaning, emotion, and ideas into few words.
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Matt Berman
Based on stories of the author's family, the book, written as twenty-four short, free-verse poems, weaves a delicate spell of humor, nostalgia, and sadness, and in doing so somehow captures two lives -- Joseph and his grandfather. When the reader thinks back over this brief story it's astounding how much is hinted at and filled in in the reader's mind: the grandfather's difficult immigrant life and hopes for his son and then his grandson, the violent father's brushes with the law, the mother's trials in raising the family with and without him, the giftedness of the grandson, on whom the family's hopes are pinned, the career of DiMaggio and his importance to immigrant families.
This book is like one of those magic bags that hold so much more than physics allows. Your child may be surprised that in discussion it takes far longer to unpack all the layers of meaning and content than it did to read the book. That's the power of poetry.
From the Book:
I want to be
Joe DiMaggio
when I grow up.
That's wonderful,
Papa-Angelo said,
but someone else
already is.
Plot Summary:
Joseph Paul is named after Joltin' Joe by his grandfather, Papa Angelo, with whom he spends his time listening to ball games on the radio. His father is in jail, and his mother has trouble making ends meet. Then World War II starts, his father comes home, and DiMaggio goes to war. But through the years, dreaming of becoming a ball player or a doctor, he yearns to make his grandfather's "broken heart soar."
Related Books:
More Stories in Poetry
Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson
Under the Pear Tree by Brenda Seabrooke
Love that Dog by Sharon Creech
Girl Coming in for a Landing by April Halprin Wayland
Make Lemonade by Virginia Euwer Wolff
The Brimstone Journals by Ron Koertge
Witness by Karen Hesse
Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse
Aleutian Sparrow by Karen Hesse
God Went to Beauty School by Cynthia Rylant
| Content | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CS | adults | kids | ||
Sexual Content |
 |
 |
||
Violence |
|
|
||
LanguageItalian-Americans are referred to as dagoes. |
|
|
||
Message |
|
|
||
Social Behavior |
 |
 |
||
Commercialism |
|
|
||
Drug/Alcohol/Tobacco |
|
|
||
