Review: The Blind Side

The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game by Michael Lewis.
W.W. Norton and Company, New York, orig. pub. 2006, my edition 2009.
Adult nonfiction, 340 pages.
Lexile: 980L .
AR Level: 7.2 (worth 19.0 points) .

The story of how the blind side revolutionized football, and a personal story giving one example of the new kind of recruit who is most highly sought after these days in American football.

The Blind Side (movie tie-in cover) by Michael Lewis.

Before getting into the review, I’ll tell you that I’ve read some of Michael Lewis’ other books – a relative is a fan.  This one deals with race and adoption, which is part of why I’ve chosen to review it here.  I was given a free copy of this book and decided to read it in part because of the sport enthusiasts I know who enjoyed it, but I myself am not much of a sports fan, which surely colors my opinion.

I think the major problem I had with this book was that Lewis starts out from a white perspective, and really never leaves that viewpoint, even when he’s purportedly trying to get into the minds of his POC characters.  The point where this was startlingly clear to me was the first paragraph of Chapter Three, where Big Tony is dramatically driving the boys out of poverty.

Lewis states “Memphis could make you wonder why anyone ever bothered to create laws segregating the races.  More than a million people making many millions of individual choices generated an outcome not so different from a law forbidding black people and white people from mingling.” (page 45).  The ignorance is startling – clearly Lewis has never heard of redlining and didn’t bother to do even basic research on Black history before writing a book where race has a major influence!

Review: The Kids Got It Right

The Kids Got It Right: How the Texas All-Stars Kicked Down Racial Walls by Jim Dent.
Thomas Dunne Books, Saint Martin’s Press, New York, 2013.
Sports nonfiction, 288 pages including index.
Not leveled.
NOTE: For international readers.  As an American, I use the word football for American football, the team sport with helmets and tackling.  For books involving the team sport with cleats and goals with nets, see the tag soccer.

This is a story of small-town Texas football, particularly those involved in the 1965 Big 33 game.  It’s the story of high school stars Jerry LeVias and Bill Bradley, an unstoppable duo who changed football at that game in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

It’s pretty clear within the first ten pages that this was written by a white man.  The subtitle notwithstanding, this book is not about race.  This book is about football, and specifically one football game in which an All-Star team began to be slightly integrated.

I picked up this book at the dollar store and after reading and reviewing, will be passing it along.  Elsewhere I’ve seen this recommended to fans of the TV show Friday Night Lights and high school football fans.  I am neither.  Sports in general are not my thing, but in particular high school football holds little interest to me unless I personally know the participants.