Book News

Shoe Dog: Young Readers Edition

Call Number: 921 CON

Book review courtesy of Goodreads.com

In this young readers edition of the New York Times bestseller, Nike founder and board chairman Phil Knight “offers a rare and revealing look at the notoriously media-shy man behind the swoosh” ( Booklist , starred review), opening up about how he went from being a track star at an Oregon high school to the founder of a brand and company that changed everything.

You must forget your limits.

It was only when Nike founder Phil Knight got cut from the baseball team as a high school freshman that his mother suggested he try out for track instead. Knight made the track team and he found he could run fast and even more he liked it.

Ten years later, young and searching, Knight borrowed fifty dollars from his father and launched a company with one simple import high quality running shoes from Japan. Selling the shoes from the trunk of his car to start, he and his gang of friends and runners built one of the most successful brands ever.

Phil Knight encountered risks and setbacks along the way, but always followed his own advice. Just keep going. Don’t stop. Whatever comes up, don’t stop. Filled with wisdom, humanity, humor, and heart, the young readers edition of the bestselling Shoe Dog is a story of determination that inspires all who read it.

The Young Reader’s Edition is an abridged version of the internationally bestselling adult book and it features original front matter and back matter, including a new introduction and “A Letter to the Young Reader” containing advice from Phil Knight for budding entrepreneurs. 

Kin: Rooted in Hope

HIST Fic WEA

Book review courtesy of Goodreads.com

I call their names:

Abram Alice Amey Arianna Antiqua

I call their names:

Isaac Jake James Jenny Jim

Every last one, property of the Lloyds,

the state’s preeminent enslavers.

Every last one, with a mind of their own

and a story that ain’t yet been told.

Till now.

Carole and Jeffery Boston Weatherford’s ancestors are among the founders of Maryland. Their family history there extends more than three hundred years, but as with the genealogical searches of many African Americans with roots in slavery, their family tree can only be traced back five generations before going dark. And so from scraps of history, Carole and Jeffery have conjured the voices of their kin, creating an often painful but ultimately empowering story of who their people were in a breathtaking book that is at once deeply personal yet all too universal.

Carole’s poems capture voices ranging from her ancestors to Frederick Douglass to Harriet Tubman to the plantation house and land itself that connects them all, and Jeffery’s evocative illustrations help carry the story from the first mention of a forebear listed as property in a 1781 ledger to he and his mother’s homegoing trip to Africa in 2016. Shaped by loss, erasure, and ultimate reclamation, this is the story of not only Carole and Jeffery’s family, but of countless other Black families in America.