This book tells the story of the life of track star, Jesse Owens. Told through a mix of illustrations and words, readers follow Jesse from the fields of Alabama all the way to the Olympics in Berlin, and back to America. The book mentions the Nazi conflict as well as the civil rights issues in America. At the end of the book there are additional pages with information about Jim Crow Laws, The Great Depression, and the History of the Olympics. The final page includes a reproducible quiz about Jesse Owens, with an answer key at the bottom.

I have a couple book club attendees who are very interested in biographies. I've noticed that it's only the high-level readers who are interested in this genre; lower-level readers and reluctant readers are much less likely to pick up biographies at this age.

This series features both well-known and minority people who made an impact on history. I chose two titles for our book club in March; Mae Jemison and Jesse Owens.

The biography of Mae Jemison talks about her early life, her determination to succeed and try out different things, and her eventual success in multiple careers. It's upbeat and inspirational with lots of short narrative stories that my readers can relate to.

Jesse Owens' biography touches briefly on his disadvantaged early life, where he battled poverty and prejudice, and his eventual triumph at the Olympics in Berlin. However, this did not last long as Owens continued to battle prejudice and poverty for the rest of his life. I felt that this story lacked enough context for younger readers to understand what was going on, although it's an ok introduction to Jesse Owens.

Verdict: My preference is for the National Geographic easy reader biographies - I feel they have more context of the history surrounding the people they profile. However, the You Should Meet... series does a better job of choosing minorities and women to feature. So you should get both series! These are a higher reading level, so they're probably only going to appeal to higher-level readers, but then they are the ones most likely to appreciate biographies anyways.

Mae Jemison
ISBN: 9781481476508; Published 2016 by Simon Spotlight; Purchased for the library

Jesse Owens
ISBN: 9781481480963; Published 2017 by Simon Spotlight; Purchased for the library