Messi

Gr 5–8—These books address a largely unfilled niche: short, highly readable biographies of contemporary soccer stars. The texts are printed over and around voluminous, richly printed photographs and include many pages of scoring statistics and league standings, awards, even a QR code to direct readers to a video of Zlatan's 40-yard bicycle-kick goal in a 2012 match against England. Frequent references to great players of the past—Maradona, Pelé, Cruyff, Eusebio—lend the books a welcome historical context. The narratives can be digressive and quirky at times. The Messi and Ronaldo volumes, for example, each devote an entire page to a recipe for the player's favorite meal. Historical overviews of shipping in the Swedish port city of Malmö or Portuguese settlement on the island of Madeira (Ronaldo's childhood home) are interesting but brief and not well situated in the narrative. Still, some solid details round out the portraits. Messi was named for singer Lionel Ritchie, popular around the time he was born, while Ronaldo's name came from his father's admiration for President Reagan. Though the primary focus is on the players' lives and their achievements on the pitch, some ink is devoted to their celebrity lifestyles: lavish homes, extravagant car collections, stratospheric salaries. All three include a "Learn More!" section, but they are not ideal for formal research; though they list personal and fan pages, as well as ESPN, all list Wikipedia as the top online resource. While these entries are excellent, this citation will raise hackles for many teachers.—Bob Hassett, Luther Jackson Middle School, Falls Church, VA