Champions on the Bench
By Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated Leonard Jenkins
Dial, $16.99
32 pp.; ISBN-13: 978-0803729872

Review by Amy Brozio-Andrews

Fifty years ago sounds like ancient history when you're a kid. But the reality of life in the South Carolina of 1955 is vividly brought to life by Carole Boston Weatherford and Leonard Jenkins with Champions on the Bench.

Young Cleveland is, like most boys, an avid follower of baseball; he watches all the teams, knows all the players, especially the greats like Jackie Robinson. To play in a summer Little League team, a chance to realize his dream of being a baseball star, is almost more than he can bear. But the team plays well, the boys work hard, and at the end of the summer, Cleveland is over the moon to learn he's been selected by the coach to play on the Cannon Street YMCA All-Star team. The entire team's dreams are smashed though, when the white boys' teams refuse to play them; the white teams secede from the League and hold their own championship series. The Cannon Street team is crushed. They're angry and confused; they play the white boys in neighborhood games all the time. Why this?

Because of the other teams' refusals to play, the Cannon Street team is named the Little League Champions, however, because the title came via forfeit and not game play, the team was ineligible to play in the Little League World Series championship games. The League does ask the team to join them in Williamsport, PA for the World Series as spectators.

The team goes, although the bitterness and frustration over not being able to take the field and test their skills and abilities almost poisons their experience and turns them off baseball forever. But Coach makes a good point -- "You have to keep playing, so you'll be ready when you finally face the white teams. They can't avoid you forever." And so Cleveland's summer winds down the way it started, watching baseball with his dad and vicariously relishing in the sweet success of Jackie Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers' World Series win.

Weatherford (Freedom on the Menu), writing from Cleveland's perspective, really drives home the affects of segregation on kids, demonstrating how it truly touched every aspect of life, including something as innocent as baseball. Her circling of the story, starting with Cleveland following the major league players and then closing with the Dodgers' World Series win, bookends it nicely, Jackie Robinson's triumph as part of the winning World Series team in stark contrast with Cleveland's team not being able to play it's championship series. Weatherford's writing style is simple and accessible, and the dialogue is age-appropriate for the 1950s without sounding dated. Her brief historical overview of the events on which the book is based allows for discussion and further reading and research.

Jenkins' illustrations -- in pencil, acrylic paint, and spray paint -- have a vintage feel that's well-matched to the historical narrative, kind of like old photographs. The full-page artwork is muted yet colorful; it really lets the story shine.

With spring harboring the return of childhood pastimes like baseball, Champions on the Bench is a powerful story that reminds us all that one upon a time not too long ago, what should have been a simple children's game was fraught with racial tension.