This book was a masterpiece for me among all children's book I've read. The adventure, the story-telling, and the morals. Undertone racism suitable for kids, Dan Gutman is just a good child-panderer.
I will never forget this book, it opened my eyes before that black people get discriminated because of their race, and now I fight for them as an advocate for race equality. ( )

This is the second book in the Baseball Card Adventure in which Joe Stoshack uses his power to travel through time using baseball cards to meet Jackie Robinson. As an added wrinkle to the story, he initially arrives in 1947 as an African American boy and directly experiences the racial animus of New York at that time. I felt that Jackie Robinson's character in this novel was one-dimensional, too much of a heroic martyr, although the book does offer some nice glimpses of his family life. Meanwhile, it seems too flippant that Stosh is traveling to meet Robinson merely to write a Black History Month report for his school, and spends much of the novel trying to gather rare baseball cards to bring to the future. The lesson of the book is how to stand up to bullies without resorting to anger, which Stosh applies in his own youth baseball games, but seems to miss out on the heart of the Jackie Robinson story in the process. ( )

Joe Stochak can travel back in time via baseball trading cards. In this one, Joe travels back in time to see Jackie Robinson break the color barrier. In doing so, Joe learns about controlling anger against bullies.

Joe Stochak can travel back in time via baseball trading cards. In this one, Joe travels back in time to see Jackie Robinson break the color barrier. In doing so, Joe learns about controlling anger against bullies.

I had never read any of the Baseball Card series books before. This one is part of our Battle of the Books challenge for this year. This is a great story for any student that loves history and/or baseball. It provides a very realistic portrayal of the racial biases of the period. ( )