By Kadir Nelson
New York: Little, Brown and Co., 2026. Informational. 102 pgs.
In December of 1891, at a YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts, James Naismith taught his students how to play a new game. He mounted fruit baskets on either end of a large room and players scored points by throwing a ball into the basket on either end. Then, play would stop while they pulled out a ladder to retrieve the ball and start again. It didn't stay that way for very long. This fascinating, informative book shows how basketball innovated and evolved from a slow moving game for mostly white players, into the fast-paced, high drama, fully integrated sport we enjoy today.
Even as a big basketball fan, I still assumed that I would mostly flip through this book to see Kadir Nelson's beautiful paintings and then call it a day. Instead, I read this book cover-to-cover in a single sitting enjoying every page. Fans of other books illustrated by Kadir Nelson will recognize his distinct style of oil painting, perfectly suited to capture the dynamism of a basketball game. But this book really stands out for its conversational tone, showing how the game has changed over time. After an outline of the history of the sport, the book focuses on big names in basketball and their stories, with a section at the end about the future of the game–especially in the WNBA. Reluctant readers might be initially turned off by the length and size of this book, but once they settle down it will capture their attention as well.
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