Sakamoto’s Swim Club: How a Teacher Led an Unlikely Team to Victory by Julie Abery, Illustrated by Chris Sasaki

  Sakamoto’s Swim Club: How a Teacher Led an Unlikely Team to Victory
by Julie Abery, Illustrated by Chris Sasaki, Kids Can Press, 9781525300318, 2021

Format: Hardcover

Rating: 1-5 (5 is an excellent or a Starred review) 4 

Genre:  Picture Book/Nonfiction

What did you like about the book?  This book gives a brief introduction to the true-life story of how science teacher Soichi Sakamoto advocated for migrant children who were swimming in irrigation ditches in the hot Hawaii sun, formed a swim club, and created Olympic winners, all without being a swimmer himself. The sparse text is written in rhyming verse reflective of the rhythm of a swimming stroke. The muted colors of the illustrations somehow reflect the lushness of the environment and the way the color and lines are splashed across the page echoes the way water spreads ink. Intense and frequent shadows throughout bring the reader into the feel of the intense heat of the hot sun and the end papers look like the tiles in a pool all adding depth to the reading experience. An inspiring story delivered in a wonderful package. 

Anything you didn’t like about it? It is very short. The end information that gives more detail is dense compared to the text so probably is not going to be read to a young child, although there is a brief paragraph before the verse begins that might be enough introduction. Hopefully an adult reading aloud would be able to give context from either the flap copy or the back text as otherwise it only gives a flavor of the story, although a delightful flavor at that!

To whom would you recommend this book? This could be used for preschool as it is short and rhymed but also up to early elementary with the background matter provided. 

Who should buy this book? Public libraries and elementary schools 

Where would you shelve it?  Picture Books

Should we (librarians/readers) put this on the top of our “to read” piles? Yes, it is a wonderful story and the way the illustrations are portrayed is a wonderful complement to that story. 

Reviewer’s Name, Library (or school), City and State: Clare Dombrowski, Amesbury Public Library, Amesbury MA

Date of review: 4/22/21