Serena Williams: A Champion on and off the Court

Scholastic Rookie Biographies

by Jodie Shepherd

Meet Serena Williams! Fact-filled Rookie Read-About Biographies introduce the youngest readers to influential women and men, both past and present. Colorful photos and age appropriate text encourage children to read on their own-as they learn about people like Serena Williams, Neil Armstrong, Rosa Parks, Anne Frank and many more. From the time she was five years old, Serena played tennis. Thanks to years of hard work and incredible talent she is considered by many to be the best female player ever. Serena's accomplishments aren't limited to the tennis court, though. She is also a successful entrepreneur and a dedicated philanthropist.

32 pages, Paperback

Published September 1, 2016

Reviews

[Hannah Lewczynski · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is another Rookie Biographies book and they do a really good job at highlighting vocabulary words that may be difficult and of dropping facts in an interesting way. The pictures are real photographs and the story does a great job of showing her accomplishments while also describing her family life. They have a page that talks about the challenges that Serena has faced and the author bluntly puts "Some people did not like seeing a black player winning so many games. They shouted racist comments when she played". I feel like there should have been extra "anti-racist" remarks after explaining "why" these people where shouting racists remarks (because there is no excuse for being racist). I feel the book would've been better had they said something along the lines of "Serena was winning so many games because of her dedication and effort, not her skin color. However, many simple-minded people felt threatened by Serena's ability, and decided they would try to belittle her accomplishments by shouting racist remarks at her". Overall I think the book did a great job at showcasing Serena's life and would be a good book to have in a library. I am not sure I would waste time discussing this book with my classroom, though.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

I added another row of people to my "people wall" so I needed some new books. This is not my favorite about Serena so I will keep looking.