Cannonball Read 13

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Search This Site

| Log in
  1. Follow us on Facebook
  2. Follow us on Twitter
  3. Follow us on Instagram
  4. Follow us on Goodreads
  5. RSS Feeds

  • Home
  • About
    • About CBR
    • Getting Started
    • Cannon Book Club
    • Diversions
    • Event Calendar
    • Fan Mail
    • Holiday Book Exchange
    • Book Bingo Reading Challenge
    • Participation Badges
    • AlabamaPink
  • Our Team
    • Leaderboard
    • The CBR Team
    • Recent Comments
    • CBR Interviews
    • Our Volunteers
    • Meet MsWas
  • Categories
    • Review Genres
    • Tags
  • Fight Cancer
    • How We Fight Cancer
    • How You Can Donate
    • Book Sale
    • CBR Merchandise
    • Supporters and Friends of CBR
  • FAQ
  • Contact
    • Contact Form
    • Newsletter Sign Up
    • Newsletter Archive
    • Follow Us
> FAQ Home
> Genre: Children's > High fives all around!

High fives all around!

A High Five For Glenn Burke by Phil Bildner

February 2, 2021 by cosbrarian 1 Comment

Sixth grader Silas Wade adores baseball, and it adores him. Center fielder for his middle-school league and the heart of the team, Silas loves to boost morale with good-natured pranks, spreading love of The Sandlot (aka the greatest movie of all time), but most importantly winning games.  For his middle school biography project, Silas turns to baseball too, and knocks it out of the park with a presentation on Glenn Burke, five-tool talent of the L.A. Dodgers in the 1970s, who not only killed it on the baseball diamond, but who invented the high five.  For Silas, though, Burke is more than an athlete to look up to for his stats and his swing; Burke had a secret, and Silas does too. Being gay meant the end of baseball for Glenn Burke. Will it be the same for Silas?

Middle grade has featured some really great LGBTQ books in the past five years or so – granted, they are still a rarity, as adults struggle to define what is or isn’t “appropriate” in a children’s book (ugh), but they are trickling in more and more as years go by.  This is a special entry in that canon for sure. For one thing, most queer MG books feature girls.  And for the books featuring boys, they mostly focus on the sensitive artsy types. But A High Five For Glenn Burke places the star of the baseball team as the one in the closet, challenging stereotypes and hopefully providing middle schoolers (especially straight cis boys) with a more dynamic view of the people around them.  It also showcases some wonderful adults and a great best friend for Silas, plus a realistic depiction of youth culture. The baseball talk is fully invested in and should be gobbled up by readers who love Mike Lupica and Matt Christopher books.

The book is also a very sensitive and overdue love letter to Glenn Burke. It celebrates his life and legacy, and is frank about the bigotry within baseball and dissolvement of his career, as well as the tragedy of his eventual addiction and death. I would be interested to know from sports fans if his legacy does endure, or if it was buried. I’ve never heard of him but I’m not a sports fan.  From all accounts here, though, it looks like he was an incredibly talented athlete.

Highly recommended for children and middle-grade readers.

Filed Under: Children's, Fiction, Sports Tagged With: Baseball, Bildner, Black History, Children's Books, coming out, glenn burke, LGBTQ, lgbtq history, middle grade, phil, Phil Bildner, queer author, Queer characters

cosbrarian's CBR13 Review No:1 · Genres: Children's, Fiction, Sports · Tags: Baseball, Bildner, Black History, Children's Books, coming out, glenn burke, LGBTQ, lgbtq history, middle grade, phil, Phil Bildner, queer author, Queer characters ·
Rating:
· 1 Comment

About cosbrarian

CBR13 participantCBR12 participantCBR11 participant

I'm a librarian, a singer, a cosplayer, a baker... maybe an overachiever. @cosbrarian on Instagram and Twitter! View cosbrarian's reviews»

Comments

  1. andtheIToldYouSos says

    February 2, 2021 at 11:42 am

    this looks lovely! thanks for the heads-up; our school library needs this!

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.



Recent Comments

  • MsWas on Holy MolyCongratulations on your first review! Love the review and the Waterhouse painting you included, just perfect. Well done!
  • postcardsandbooks on Do your favourites hold up on re-reads?I also have that problem (or maybe it's a solution?)... I remembered the plot of the first movie, but the second and third I completely...
  • postcardsandbooks on Do your favourites hold up on re-reads?Oh! I can't remember how it ends at all. I'm in for a fun re-read of book 3 :)
  • postcardsandbooks on Do your favourites hold up on re-reads?Oh I just finished my re-read of book 2 and I think it gets 4 stars too. Technically 3.5, but I will probably round it...
  • postcardsandbooks on I need to read more queer YA contemporariesOh, have you read any yet? I have a couple more of her novels in my TBR for this year. :)
See More Recent Comments »

Want to Help Out?

CBR has a great crew of volunteers, and we're always looking for more people to help out. If you have a specialty or are willing to learn, drop MsWas a line.

  • How You Can Donate
  • FAQ
  • Shop
  • Volunteers
  • Leaderboard
  • AlabamaPink
  • Contact

Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo
  3. Google Pay
© 2021 Cannonball Read | Log in