Writing Sports Biographies for Young Readers

Twelve years ago, when I was teaching elementary school in Harlem, I began to write nonfiction books for young people because first, I wanted to encourage youngsters to read by providing books on subjects of particular interest to them, and second, I wanted them to have books on subjects of importance or current interest about which there were few or no books written for this special audience. It was a time when young people were more politicized and politically active than ever before, or since, in history. College students were shutting down their campuses and marching on Washington to protest the war in Vietnam; high school students were refusing induction into the National Honor Society, calling it a tool of the establishment; junior high school students were defying school dress codes and experimenting with drugs. It was a time when the paucity of the black presence in American history books was being exposed and when a rush to correct that situation was beginning. Accordingly, my first books addressed what I identified as the needs of the time: Resistance: Profiles in Nonviolence; Revolutionaries: Agents of Change; The War and the Protest: Vietnam; Profiles in Black Power.

Later, I started writing biographies of important black Americans, living and dead, about whom juvenile biographies had not been written before or about whom existing biographies for young people were inadequate. I also wrote some biographies of black athletes. Interspersed with these biographies were other books on issues, such as teenage alcoholism and gambling, the consumer movement and the disabled rights movement. But looking back over the list I realize that the most successful of my books, and those with the most staying power, have been the biographies.

I intend to continue writing about issues for young people, for there is a need to provide youngsters with material on their level about what is happening in the world around them. But I have come to realize that in the case of books about issues, young people are not a loyal audience—and cannot be expected to be, by simple virtue of their youth. Twelve years later, events like the war in Vietnam and the Black Power movement are still very real to me, but the average 10 or 12 year-old could not be less interested in things that happened before he or she was born. Youngsters will no doubt learn about these events, but in school under the direction of an adult who remembers. They are not likely to be interested enough to do independent reading on such events, at least not at the age of 10 or 12.

Personalities, on the other hand, need not be current to interest young readers. Adolescents today do not remember the Civil Rights movement and probably know nothing about the philosophy of nonviolence, but they are likely to have heard of Martin Luther King, Jr., and to be interested in reading about him, at least during Black History Week. They may find something in his childhood with which they can identify, even though he grew up decades before them. Years from now, Barbara Jordan may be totally unfamiliar to youngsters, but young girls, particularly young black girls and girls interested in politics or the law, will want to read about a black woman who was successful in both areas in a time when opportunities for a young black woman in Texas were limited. When Barbara Jordan was growing up, she hadn't many role models and access to even fewer books about them; young girls in the future will be more fortunate.

Having presented a case for the continued existence in print of my biographies of important black Americans in politics and social history, I must now state that as a group, my most successful biographies for young people have been those of sports personalities. A particular book in another genre or a biography of a particular non-sports personality may have sold better than any single sports biography I've written. A particular biography of a non-sports personality may have engendered more mail from readers than any single sports biography. But if I...