Each month, Typhani Russo from the Altoona Area Public Library shares her top 10 book picks that center around a specific theme. This month’s theme is “Reading in a Hockey Wonderland.”
Book information and summaries cited from Goodreads.com.
All books listed are available at the Altoona Area Public Library.
CHILDREN’S BOOKS:
Book: S Is for the Stanley Cup: A Hockey Championship Alphabet, by Michael Ulmer
Synopsis:
Following the alphabet, this book uses poetry and expository text to pay tribute to the Stanley Cup with topics that include Cup history and records, famous team captains, nail-biting finishes, as well as unique traditions.
Book: The Pittsburgh Penguins, by Mark Stewart
Synopsis:
Every Team Spirit title explores the history of the team, its greatest moments and players, fun quotes, amazing stories, and much more. Each book also includes a table of contents, index, glossary, places to go, timeline, and maps. The series covers professional and collegiate sports teams. Sports author Mark Stewart brings the spirit and tradition of the Pittsburgh Penguins to life for young hockey fans. Using the team’s rich history and memorabilia, he creates an engaging story that transforms readers into instant experts.
Book: Dino-Hockey, by Lisa Wheeler
Synopsis:
In an ice-hockey match unrivalled in prehistory, this is the tale of the Meat-Eaters taking on the Veggiesaurs. By sorting teams into carnivores and herbivores the author sneaks in a science lesson in this amusing pairing of sport and prehistoric beasts.
Book: Sidney Crosby: Hockey’s Golden Boy, by Dave McMahon
Synopsis:
Playmakers introduces young readers to their current heroes on and off the ice. Sidney Crosby: Hockey’s Golden Boy, summarizes Sidney Crosby’s life and career to date and draws attention to accomplishments beyond his athletic skill. Short, informative sidebars add to the engaging, easy-to-read text, making Playmakers a hit for any young sports fan!
ADULT BOOKS:
Book: Boy on Ice: The Life and Death of Derek Boogaard, by John Branch
Synopsis:
The tragic death of hockey star Derek Boogaard at twenty-eight was front page news across the country in 2011 and helped shatter the silence about violence and concussions in professional sports. Now, in a gripping work of narrative nonfiction, acclaimed reporter John Branch tells the shocking story of Boogaard’s life and heartbreaking death.
Book: 99: Stories of the Game, by Wayne Gretzky
Synopsis:
No one has been as close to the game as Wayne Gretzky. When he first laced up skates in the NHL, he changed the league. And by the time he had hung up his skates, he had re-written the record book. There can be no doubt what he means to the game. What we haven’t seen is what the game means to him. For the first time, Wayne Gretzky will tell us about the NHL’s great moments from his point of view. We will meet the people who inspired him and motivated him. We’ll read the stories of the players who ignited his imagination, just as Gretzky himself inspired the dreams of so many young players and fans.
Book: The Rookie: A Season with Sidney Crosby and the New NHL, by Shawna Richer
Synopsis:
When Sidney Crosby was first drafted by the Pittsburgh Penguins, we knew he was bright, photogenic, personable, and a media darling. The only question that remained was whether he could handle the big time. From an international advertising deal with Reebok to a season of personal triumphs and gut-wrenching challenges, Sid the Kid has proven that he is the man. Beginning with the NHL entry draft that almost never was, Richer follows Crosby to Pittsburgh, where he is greeted as the team’s savior, and moves in with living legend Mario Lemieux. Just eighteen, the league’s youngest player makes the leap to the NHL look easy and is named best rookie in his first month, while performing under great expectations and intense scrutiny. He quickly becomes his team’s leading scorer and best player. Now, as a 3x Stanley Cup Champion, Sidney Crosby is still a force to be reckoned with.
Book: Mario Lemieux: Over Time, by Chrys Goyens
Synopsis:
It was the Rumor of the New Millennium for the entire hockey world. The biggest story of the 2000-2001 National Hockey League season began as a whisper in Pittsburgh, and then raged across the sports pages and web sites of North America as the holidays neared. Mario Lemieux, the super-sized star of the National Hockey League driven too young from the game at which he excelled, was contemplating a comeback. In the wake of an interminable string of ailments and injuries, Super Mario had left the game in 1997 and limped into the Hockey Hall of Fame, barely into his thirties. By age thirty-four, he was president of the Pittsburgh Penguins, once again resurrecting a foundering franchise, this time in a suit. Ironically, accepting that responsibility only heightened his desire to address some unfinished business…on the ice. Healthier than he had been at any time in the last five years of his playing career, No.66 confirmed his return to the NHL ice wars, a belated Christmas present for Pittsburgh and the hockey world. From his early days as a hockey prodigy to his brilliant return in a blaze of glory, Mario Lemieux: Over Time is the definitive book on one of the greatest hockey players of all time.
Book: Hockey: A People’s History, by Michael McKinley
Synopsis:
Hockey: A People’s History, tells the story of this breathtakingly fast game from its hotly contested origins, and the surge in its popularity after 1875, when it was first taken inside, to the present day and the first-ever lockout of players by the one remaining league. In that time, while play has changed only slightly (every generation of Canadians has complained about the growing violence of the game) hockey itself has been transformed from a rough and ready winter sport to a business worth many billions of dollars, played by millionaires. But Hockey: A People’s History is not a business story, rather, it is the story of the men and woman who helped make the game what it is today. It also tells the story of all the great moments in hockey, such as the Leafs’ previously unheard-of third consecutive Stanley Cup in 1949. Through its lavishly illustrated pages skate the players, the coaches and the owners, many of them still legendary, too many of them almost forgotten. They are the reason why Canadians have stayed true to the game.
Book: Breakaway: The Inside Story of the Pittsburgh Penguins’ Rebirth, by Andrew Conte
Synopsis:
Breakaway transcends Americans passions for sports and casino gambling as it follows two professional hockey team owners who run the table from bankruptcy to a lucrative new arena and the most-storied trophy in all of sports. Breakaway brings the hockey fan into the action of the behind the scenes intrigue and the high stakes action of the front office of a major league sports franchise.
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