I said that The Music Inside Us: Yo-Yo Ma and His Gifts to the World by James Howe is probably one of my favorite picture biographies this year. Or actually favorite reads from 2024, but it is not due until 2025. Therefore if you are looking for one of my favorite reads in 2024 and is out in 2024 for a picture biography, pick up Wat Takes His Shot: The Life & Legacy of Basketball Hero Wataru Misaka by Cheryl Kim and illustrated by Nat Iwata.
I know little to nothing about basketball. I know that there is a giant orange thing, my nephew plays it as one of his Special Olympic events, there is a lot of squeaking going on, and you didn’t sit next to/in front of/behind my friend Sharon when she was cheering on our team (she had a habit of getting, shall we excited, and had a lot of hand swinging…). Therefore, I did not know of Wataru Misaka. Not only was he the first Asian to be on a national team, he would do all of his accomplishments during a time when racism was rampant due to World War II and general bigotry.
While we are learning about the highlights of his life (such as why his family was not in an internment camp, but one of his fellow players’ family was), we are graced by the not completely realistic, but images of Iwata. They are darker, but not “unviewable.” And they can be busy but they do not “flesh out” everything, but support the text. This book is best for a slightly older reader or listener, but can be adapted to most ages. It is not just for the basketball fan, but for someone interested in American history, sports, or Asian-American people. It was published in June 2024, but I still had a reader copy in my collection of reader copies.