Book Review: Becoming Joe DiMaggio
Rate This Article
What Parents Should Know
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 Media Review
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.
Common Sense Media is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing information to help parents make media and entertainment choices for their families.
