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Joltin' Joe DiMaggio

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Bestselling author Jonah Winter and award-winning illustrator James E. Ransome knock it out of the park with this tribute to one of the greatest baseball players who ever lived, Joe DiMaggio.

In the golden age of baseball, sports announcers ruled the radio, winning and losing was front-page news, and just about every young boy wanted to grow up to wear Yankee pinstripes, including Giuseppe Paolo DiMaggio, Jr., a first generation Italian from San Francisco.

“Baseball is not a job,” said young Joe’s dad, but through hard work and dedication, Joe grew up to make headlines as a top centerfielder and ace hitter—Joltin’ Joe, the Yankee Clipper. And when the paychecks started rolling in and the newspaper reporters wouldn’t stop calling, you can bet Pop was mighty proud!

During the Depression and WWII the country needed something to cheer for, and Joe was the star player who outshone the rest, even marrying movie star Marilyn Monroe—all by keeping his mouth shut and his eye on the ball.

48 pages, Hardcover

First published September 2, 2014

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About the author

Jonah Winter

77 books82 followers
Jonah Winter is the celebrated author of many picture book biographies, including Barack, which was a New York Times bestseller. His books include Here Comes the Garbage Barge, Sonia Sotomayor, Roberto Clemente, and more. A poet and a painter, Mr. Winter divides his time between Santa Fe and a small town in Pennsylvania.

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5 stars
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4 stars
49 (51%)
3 stars
24 (25%)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
Profile Image for Jessica Santana.
47 reviews1 follower
April 16, 2018
This book tells about the upbringing and success of famous baseball player, Joe DiMaggio. As a young boy, Joe had a passion for baseball but his family doubted his ability to make a living out of the sport. Joe's father was a fisherman and he was determined to stray away from his parents' belief that Joe would end up doing the same thing. Joe's talent and determination eventually landed him a spot on the New York Yankees, where he became a star. The author, Jonah Winter, does a great job at covering the highlights of DiMaggio's successful career and setting it in the context against the Great Depression and coming war, since the story is set in the 1940s. Although it is a biography, it is told in a narrative form which allows the reader to be entertained by a story while learning new, factual information. This would be a great resource for students when they are assigned research projects, especially since the information is cited.
86 reviews
April 13, 2020
2nd-4th grade
biographical nonfiction
What a great book! I love that this book describes the life of a baseball player! I believe this is a great book for young boys (but not limited to them). This would be a great book that would keep the athletes and "sports enthusiasts" occupied and engaged while reading a story about someone they can relate to. I loved the factual knowledge represented throughout the story, I think this story could make Joe a role model for readers of this book. I think this would be a great addition to my classroom.
Profile Image for Charlotte S.
371 reviews4 followers
July 12, 2023
This is such a great book that, as the title implies, tells the life of Joe DiMaggio. The illustrations are wonderful and the writing is awesome! It's very informative and I love how it shows Joe's life outside of baseball, too. There is a section in the back of the book that tells more about Joe's life and stats. It's one of my favorite baseball books. Thank you for reading! Follow @bronteandwilder on Instagram for more fun book recommendations!
60 reviews
June 14, 2018
Joe DiMaggio is one of the most amazing baseball players to live. Through injuries in his career he still pushed through and didn't let them stop him from getting to where he wanted to be in his game. He is still looked at and praised as one of the greatest Yankees to step foot on the diamond. Fun read for me especially, and most likely any other baseball player out there!
Profile Image for Cheryl.
398 reviews
December 9, 2017
[3.5 stars]

I would’ve liked to have seen actual pictures of maybe a baseball glove or a bat that he used. There could’ve also been some bits of information regarding how much his items are collectible now, and their worth. Signed baseballs and autographs and the like.
60 reviews
March 16, 2018
I love all baseball history books but Joltin Joe DiMaggio's story beats most. I would like to share this story during many different teaching lessons ranging from Sports History and blend that with what was going on in the world at the time. I will have this in my sports text set.
Profile Image for Kolbe Bales.
60 reviews
December 2, 2018
Great Book! Really a big baseball fan so this allowed me to be more engaged in the book. I would recomend this book to anyone. It was pretty long but it was also telling a great story at the same time.
23 reviews
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August 3, 2016
Title: Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio
Author: Jonah Winter
Illustrator: James E. Ransame
Genre: K-2 Biography
Theme(s): Biography, sports
Opening line/sentence:
“Baseball, believe it or not, was once the biggest sport in America – bigger than football, bigger than basketball.”
Brief Book Summary:
This book tells the story of baseball in the past, and one player in particular – Joe DiMaggio. This book details the events of Joe’s life, from a young age to his days playing baseball.
Professional Recommendation/Review #1:

Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, August 15, 2014 (Vol. 82, No. 16))
The great Joe DiMaggio still holds fascination for modern fans. Baseball in the first half of the 20th century was indeed the national pastime. Whether it was the major league teams, players and game, the minor leagues with their future stars, or the local sandlot team, baseball was king. Winter taps into this fervor for this brief but thorough biography. From the beginning,Joe was determined not to become a fisherman like his father. Baseball would be his way out. Winter covers all the highlights of DiMaggio's remarkable career, including his amazing, still unbroken hitting streaks, contextualizing it against the Depression and the coming war. He describes Joe's quiet, almost taciturn demeanor and how it did nothing to impede his stature as a national hero. The narrative notes how DiMaggio's every deed was covered in depth in newspapers and on radio, how he earned his nicknames, "Joltin' Joe" and "the Yankee Clipper," and how he even became the subject of a hit song. EvenDiMaggio's later marriage to Marilyn Monroe is remarked on for its joining of two of the most famous icons in America. Ransome's detailed watercolors beautifully convey DiMaggio's persona and his baseball prowess with just the right combination of accuracy and nostalgia. Hero worship abounds, but even within this context, the book scores a home run.
Professional Recommendation/Review #2:

Elizabeth Bush (The Bulletin of the Center for Children s Books, October 2014 (Vol. 68, No. 2))
Winter has made several notable contributions to the baseball nonfiction shelf (such as You Never Heard of Willie Mays?, BCCB 2/13), and now here s another on the Yankee Clipper. With the tone of one enthusiast addressing another, Winter digs back into DiMaggio s childhood to provide a remarkably balanced bio; as, of course, he must, since Joe was just a kid of seventeen when he went pro (with a paycheck that changed dad s opinion about the merits of the game), and nineteen when he became a Yankee, heir apparent to Babe Ruth. There s a strong emphasis on Joe s reluctance to natter to the press or for that matter even to engage much with his own teammates, a practice that, as Winter notes in his closing remarks, only added to his mystique. Winter displays keen judgment in what to include in the text, and what to add in the final notes. Therefore, Joe s unbroken record of a fifty-six-game hitting streak is featured, with other stats relegated to the end matter; likewise, his marriage to Marilyn Monroe gets the glamorous double-page spread that the headline-making union demands, but his ritual of laying roses on his ex-wife s grave is simply but touchingly saved for the end. Ransome s artwork is an excellent match, comprising both day-in-the-life scenes and cleverly composed contrasts between Depression Era baseball glamor and Dust Bowl squalor. Visual allusions to the media feeding frenzy around Joltin Joe are deftly incorporated, tacitly reminding readers that celebrity is not a recent invention. Pair this with Mays and perhaps a hot dog or two for a baseball biography bonanza.

Response to Two Professional Reviews:
One thing that both reviews touched upon was the artwork in the book. I noticed this as well, I thought the pictures were painted beautifully and added much to the story. The depictions of the different situations and the colors used provided the reader with pleasing visuals that were subtle enough to not be distracting, but were beautiful enough to stand on their own.
Evaluation of Literary Elements:
This book has been designed with the intentions of being approachable to young readers. The pictures are big, and take up the majority of the pages while the words are kept small and on the top of the pages. The words on the pages are grouped into manageable paragraphs, so that the reader can progress through the book without too much difficulty. This creates a book that isn’t overwhelming, but is inviting to young readers and is something that they can tackle.
Consideration of Instructional Application:
With this book being set in the past, and being a biography, I would use this to create a unit of biographies. I would read this book with my class, and then I would have the class as a whole pick out a person to create our own biography on. We would then research whomever we had chosen and we would create our own timeline of the person’s life. After we had created a timeline, we could work together to write a short biography on our person’s life.
52 reviews
June 11, 2018
In this book, young Joe's dad does not think he should become a baseball player because thats not a real job. However he ends up making the Yankees and is able to have a huge impact on the youth. A good example of chasing your dreams that could be used with young kids.
Profile Image for Richie Partington.
1,166 reviews130 followers
September 2, 2014
Richie’s Picks: JOLTIN’ JOE DIMAGGIO by Jonah Winter and James E. Ransome, ill., Atheneum, September 2014, 48p., ISBN: 978-1-4169-4080-7

“Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio
Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.
What’s that you say, Mrs. Robinson,
Joltin’ Joe has left and gone away.”
-- Simon and Garfunkel (1968)

“Like most American boys, Joe mainly cared about one thing: baseball. Joe and his pals played baseball every day in the playground lot just up the hill from Fisherman’s Wharf.
“Joe’s dad was a fisherman from Italy, and he mainly cared about one thing too: fish. He expected all his sons to become fishermen just like him. But Joe hated boats, hated the smell of fish, and hated how hard his father worked for so little money. Joe would not become a fisherman, and that was that.”

Joe DiMaggio’s major league career ended years before I was born. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame when I was a baby in 1955. And yet, nearly sixty years later, when I asked the softball-playing thirteen-year-old girl down the block if she’d ever heard of Joe DiMaggio, she immediately responded that he’d been a baseball player and had been married to Marilyn Monroe.

Giuseppe Paolo (Joe) DiMaggio Jr. made quite a name for himself. At nineteen years old he was signed by the New York Yankees to replace the just-retired Babe Ruth. As a rookie, they paid him the Great Depression-era princely sum of $25,000. Now DiMaggio’s father didn’t mind that his son was not a fisherman.

Over his thirteen years with the Yankees he proved himself to be worth every penny. After 74 years, DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak remains the Major League record. The closest someone has come since then was the since-disgraced Pete Rose, who had a 44-game streak.

We learn all this and more from JOLTIN’ JOE DIMAGGIO.

James E. Ransome hits it out of the park with his watercolor illustrations. On his website, Ransome explains that studying filmmaking taught him “how to pace a story with the aid of camera angles and framing images.” He uses this background to great effect as he depicts DiMaggio with his boyhood family, on the train with his teammates, and in action on the field. He also provides vivid images of a long-ago America.

In an author’s note, Jonah Winter further details the Yankee Clipper’s historic significance both on and off the field.

JOLTIN’ JOE DIMAGGIO makes it clear why my young neighbor knows about this long-ago American sports hero.

Richie Partington, MLIS
Richie's Picks http://richiespicks.pbworks.com
[email protected]
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Profile Image for Angie.
23 reviews
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January 30, 2015
1.Identify if book is primary or intermediate and intended for independent reading or read aloud.
Joltin’ Joe Dimaggio is a primary book intended for independent reading.

2.Rationale for the book selection including a connection between the student inventory and content from the book (2-3 sentences)
Cooper expressed interest in baseball and historical fiction. He also said he would like to meet Derek Jeter. I selected this book because Joe Dimaggio was a New York Yankee like Derek Jeter. I thought it would be interesting for Cooper to read about another baseball legend in a historical fiction context.

3.Write out a statement that you would use to “hook” the student or share the book with the student that would get his/her attention.
Hey Cooper! I love baseball and historical fiction, too! I know you said you want to meet Derek Jeter, so I thought you might like to read about another baseball legend that worked his way up to the big leagues before Derek Jeter. Joe Dimaggio got hits in 56 games in a row back in 1941. That record STILL hasn’t been broken!! Pretty impressive, yeah?
Profile Image for Clara.
28 reviews
April 10, 2015
Jonah Winter wanted to highlight the life of one of the greatest baseball players in America, Joe DiMaggio through a Non-Fiction picture biography book.

Joe DiMaggio came from Italian descent. His father was a fisherman and was expecting him to learn his profession. But Joe would rather play on the streets the sport that everyone talked about in America: baseball in the 1920s. He proved that he was good at it. When he was seventeen, he played with a team in San Francisco. Joe showed his great talent and two years later Joe was signed to America’s greatest team: the Yankees from New York. Jonah Winter also described Joe as a quite person who let his talent of hitting do the talking. The watercolor pictures also capture the important events we need to know about Joe DiMaggio.

I recommend this book for four grade and up. It is an enjoyable book. Students can take it home and bring back memories to their parents and grandparents about a legend that will always be in American sport’s history: Joe DiMaggio.
Profile Image for Barbara.
14.2k reviews301 followers
January 27, 2015
Clearly written by a student of the game of baseball, this picture book biography of the great Joe DiMaggio will surely appeal to sports fans. The author relies on lively text and vivid anecdotes to tell the unlikely success story of the son of Italian immigrants and how he became more famous than most movie stars. Just nineteen when he was signed to play baseball for the New York Yankees, Joltin' Joe went on to have a hit in 56 consecutive games. The lovely watercolor illustrations with their detailed facial expressions and the engaging story make it apparent how important DiMaggio was as a ground-breaker. Not only did his talent and quietness subvert some of the prejudices held against Italian Americans, but he also let his performance on the field speak for itself rather than boasting about his accomplishments. Perhaps a new generation will become intrigued by this talented athlete and want to know more. Back matter includes career statistics and a note from the author.
Profile Image for Holly Mueller.
2,395 reviews3 followers
November 1, 2014
Joe had three strikes against him: he was supposed to become a fisherman like his dad, he was an Italian American in a prejudiced time, and he barely said a word. Those things didn't stop him at all, though. He loved baseball, and he was so good at it that the New York Yankees AND his dad approved. He played baseball for the Yankees through the Great Depression and in 1941, he tied the American League hitting streak record that George Sisler had set in 1922. He didn't stop his hitting streak, making it through 56 games, a record that still stands today. Big, bold language and dynamic, expressive illustrations join to make this an entertaining read for all readers, not just baseball fans. An Author's Note & Stats give extra information in the back.
Profile Image for Alyssa Fortna.
41 reviews
December 14, 2014
This book tells the story of famous New York Yankee player Joe Dimaggio. It discusses his love for baseball, his family life, his dad's hope for him to become a fisherman, his baseball career, and all of the records that he broke. This would be a good book for children to begin their exposure to biographies. It is written in a way that is easy for young readers to understand, but is still interesting and provides good information for older readers. I would recommend this book for children between 5 and 10. This would be good to use during a biography lesson, or even one that is incorporating sports or famous people.
101 reviews1 follower
November 7, 2014
This picture book biography is on a famous baseball player of the past. The illustrations and writing tell the story of a young Italian American whose family were immigrants to the United States. This young boy grew to be a famous baseball player who served in WWII and played pro ball during the depression area and after. A great way to provide children with fun educational material.

Recommended age 4-10
Reading Level 3rd-5th grade
416 reviews5 followers
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April 26, 2015
Filling the shoes of Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio quickly became one of the most famous baseball star in the United States. His famous strikes include that he strikes down the prejudice against the Italian immigrants; he did not become a fisherman as his father wanted; and he overcame quietness and shyness to develop his strong character traits.
Profile Image for Amy Allgeier .
644 reviews18 followers
September 19, 2014
Great biography on DiMaggio. Always have loved reading about him and this story was great for elementary kids because it was set in a conversationalist style. It was interesting and inspiring. Great stats in the back as well.
Profile Image for Alice.
4,303 reviews37 followers
November 15, 2014
I really didn't know much about Joe DiMaggio except that he was a famous baseball player! Thankfully I learned a ton about him and gained a greater appreciation for his life and contribution to baseball!

Not being a baseball fan I still enjoyed it!
Profile Image for Christina Getrost.
2,294 reviews75 followers
December 6, 2015
Nice picture book about the shy reserved Joe DiMaggio and how he rose from being a poor newsboy, Italian immigrant fisherman's son to all-star ballplayer. Lovely realistic watercolor illustrations. Author's note and a list of two sources and some websites.
Profile Image for Carol.
1,760 reviews20 followers
December 12, 2014
As usual, Jonah Winter has created a wonderful biography for young readers. Ransome's illustrations wonderfully complement the book and invoke a feeling for this particular era of American life.
Profile Image for Karen.
Author 9 books31 followers
September 29, 2015
This is an excellent and interesting biography/picture book about Joe DiMaggio. I would recommend it for second grade and up.
Profile Image for Jason.
3,919 reviews26 followers
March 29, 2017
I've really been enjoying these Yankees profiles by Jonah Winter. This is the third after Mantle and Stengel. His prose is easy and colorful and nostalgic. Any baseball fan, young or old, will love this and Winter's others!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews

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