School Library Journal Review
Gr 1--5--The opening pages will draw in just about everybody: Glenn Burke on the field was a "five-tool" talent. He could run faster, connect bat to ball, hit with power, catch anything that came his way, and his throwing arm was a cannon! This Black man should have been one of the greatest names in baseball history, but his story takes a melancholy turn. Burke is gay. The rampant homophobia of the 1970s manifests itself, Bildner notes, in the person of Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda: "Tommy's son was gay, too, and Tommy couldn't stand that he was. When he found out his son was friends with Glenn, he made his son stay away." (No source notes back this up.) Illustrations and narrative that had complemented one another suddenly diverge. Three scenes--Burke dashing out of the darkness with a man, sharing an intimate look in a car with a second man (with the reflection of a third man in the rearview mirror), and then alone under a lamp post--are all but divorced from the text. At last the story returns to the origins of the high five and the jubilation of the early scenes before another descent into Burke's decline and early death. Despite Bildner's brilliant, crackling writing, O'Brien's marvelous, dynamic illustrations, full of energy and keyed into historic moments, and the immutable fact that this story needs telling, this book rights the record with sensationalized whiplash and an unbearably stark emotional throughline to the main character. Picture book readers, especially any child also struggling with identity, will either appreciate this authentic but despair-filled glimpse in the "mirror" or simply may be too young for this very bittersweet journey. VERDICT For all sports/Black history/LGBTQIA+ shelves, this book is a must, but supplement it with historical resources.--Kimberly Olson Fakih
Publisher's Weekly Review
"On the baseball diamond, Glenn Burke was a five-tool talent," begins this sobering account of Major League Baseball player Burke (1952--1995). Portraying the athlete as someone who "could change the game," Bildner conveys Burke's high energy, which endears him to his L.A. Dodgers teammates and fans. But he experiences discrimination from higher-ups for being gay; despite accompanying the Dodgers to the World Series, Burke is promptly traded to the Oakland Athletics, "one of the worst teams in all of baseball," and he and his teammates know why. When the Athletics make their unhappiness with the trade clear, Burke leaves baseball entirely and struggles with the trauma of the events before his early death. But two aspects of his career endure: the high-five, a "game-changing handshake" he coined, and his legacy as a player who opened the door for other LGBTQ athletes to openly live and play. O'Brien's distinctive use of composition and saturated palette lend cinematic appeal to this affecting story. An author's note concludes. Ages 6--9. (Feb.)
Kirkus Review
Following up his middle-grade novel A High Five for Glenn Burke (2020), Bildner pens a picture-book biography about a remarkable gay Black baseball player. A rare "five-tool talent" (he could run, catch, throw, and hit for both average and power), young Glenn Burke was snatched up by the Dodgers, and teammates and fans alike soon delighted in his high-spirited humor and enthusiasm for the team and game they loved. Burke enjoyed a strong rookie season and is credited with inventing the high-five with teammate Dusty Baker. Burke was also a closeted gay athlete, vulnerable to the homophobia of people such as his manager, Tommy Lasorda, who traded Burke mere months after he'd helped get the Dodgers to the World Series. Burke's story has plenty of sadness--ongoing homophobia, a debilitating car accident, and an HIV diagnosis, which led to his far-too-early death in 1995 at age 42. But it also has joy: He found his community after leaving baseball, won gold in the Gay Olympics, and lived to see his special handshake become a widespread symbol of celebration. O'Brien's illustrations, opaque and with highly defined detail, are both imposing and intimate, and they move readers through Burke's trials and triumphs. Bildner's honest and weighty text is balanced by spreads full of motion, whether figures round bases or connect with high-fives. A bittersweet legacy now accessible to younger readers and sports fans. (author's note, bibliography, timeline) (Picture-book biography. 5-8) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Burke, as Bildner pithily puts it in his afterword, "was a gay Black man who was run out of Major League Baseball and died from AIDS." To be sure, when he and Dodgers teammate Dusty Baker exchanged high fives for each other's home runs in 1977, the talented rookie seems to have been the first person on record to use what became a "universal greeting of joy and jubilation"--but it's the rest of his story that the author is at more pains to tell and that will make the deepest impression. The author doesn't mince words in this picture book profile's main narrative, either about the homophobia Burke faced, particularly from legendary Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda, or his later troubles with drugs and the law. From sinuous young star of North Oakland's sandlots to chiseled adulthood, he cuts a generally heroic figure in O'Brien's stiffly posed scenes, but readers might be better off regarding him as less a role model than an iconic early victim of our society's still-evolving attitude toward gay athletes and public figures.
