To be frank, Jeremy Lin probably owes his career to luck just as much as his talent. The man was talented on the teams before he joined the New York Knicks, but since he did not get a lot of playing time, that talent was not seen. However, due to the bad luck of veteran players being injured and the teams losing record, he was given a shot, and this allowed Lin to be seen. And it sounds like he was seen and then some. In fact, seen all over the world! Not being a basketball fan, I am afraid I did not know of Linsanity until recently. However, I wish I had. And like the author says in their afterwards, what kind of impact would Lin have had on Richard Ho as a child? Because I cannot imagine what it did for the kids of 2012 and beyond to see “someone like them” on the courts. And honestly, most people can be inspired by this story. Such as when I was growing up, I was blessed with an amazing Asian-American aunt (so I knew not everyone looked like me, girls could go to college, and there was someone crazy enough to marry my uncle so there was hope for me!), but it was not until I was older that I realized how “odd” that was. To be represented is an important thing.And the great thing about If Lin Can: How Jeremy Lin Inspired Asian Americans to Shoot for the Stars by Ho, Huynh Kim Lien and Phung Nguyen Wuang is it is all about the representation. Told from the point of view of a narrator who is watching Lin become a basketball player, as we also see kids “now” and how their struggles are similar to what Lin faced, these multiple stories are intertwining to represent mostly Lin’s journey, but which could be “your” journey, too. Myself, as a kid who was not “tall enough, athletic enough, good enough, or loud enough,” my adult self could relate to these characters. This book is an inspiration for anyone who has been told they “can’t” or are “not” (fill in the blanks).
The illustrations are sweet, simple, but give a good pop to things. The colors are slightly darker, but light and lighter colors all play their part. It is a fun book that also is educational. The minimalistic text allows the art to have its moment, as well as on the page that has the newspapers talking of the impact of the first game with the Knicks, the text becomes the art as it becomes the headlines. This is the most busy page in the book and was a bit overwhelming, yet perhaps my favorite due to the cleverness of it. Extras are included and I look forward to mid-April 2024 for the finished copy (as I read via an online readers copy).
