He could hit, and he could field, and what people remember is that for two full seasons he was not allowed to fight back. Jackie Robinson had been a four-sport athlete at UCLA and an Army officer court-martialed for refusing to move to the back of a bus, so holding his temper was not his natural setting. But the deal he shook on with Branch Rickey in 1945 was that he would take whatever came — the pitchers throwing at his head, the spikes, the letters, the hotels that would not give him a room — and answer it with base hits and stolen bases. On April 15, 1947, he ran out to first base at Ebbets Field, and by October he was Rookie of the Year. Two years later he was the National League's Most Valuable Player, and he had stopped holding back.
Bookroo's collection of Jackie Robinson books covers all of it, and our editors picked thirteen that a child can actually get through at the right age. The best of them are surprisingly small in scope: one deaf father and his son in the Ebbets Field bleachers, a neighbor boy in Brooklyn, a Christmas tree carried up someone else's front steps, a frozen lake in Connecticut where a famous ballplayer admits he never learned to swim. Start with the shortlist below, then browse by age — picture books for four- to nine-year-olds, then chapter books and middle grade for readers eight and up, including the two novels that show up on the most third- and fourth-grade reading lists.
One rookie eats alone, dresses alone, and rides to the park alone — until a teammate walks across the infield and stands next to him.
Before he was number 42, he was the smallest brother in a Pasadena family, racing his older brother and losing.
A boy's father is deaf, the crowd at Ebbets Field is a roar he cannot hear, and the two of them keep score together all season long.
Texas, 1944: an Army lieutenant is told to move to the back of a military bus, refuses, and ends up on trial.
The kids want to skate. Their father walks out onto the frozen lake first, one careful step at a time, because he never learned to swim.
A ballplayer notices the family next door has no Christmas tree, so he buys one and carries it over — and learns they are Jewish.
Jack and Annie land in Brooklyn on April 15, 1947, and end up in the Dodgers clubhouse on the morning of the most-watched debut in baseball.
The whole life in a hundred pages: Pasadena, UCLA, the Army, the Monarchs, Montreal, Brooklyn, and Cooperstown.
Joe Stoshack can travel through time by holding an old baseball card. This time the card is Jackie Robinson's, and 1947 does not want him there either.
Nine chapters, one for each inning, tracing how a boy from Pasadena ended up with a number no team will ever issue again.
Eight-year-old Steve Satlow wants a friend on his Brooklyn block. Instead he gets the Dodgers' second baseman moving in two doors down.
Shirley Temple Wong arrives in Brooklyn from China in 1947 speaking almost no English, and finds one thing the whole class will discuss with her.
His daughter opens the family albums: the letters, the contracts, the box scores, and the years after the uniform came off.
Picture-book biographies of the whole life, plus read-alouds built around a single afternoon: opening day at Ebbets Field, a courtroom in Texas, a lake in winter. Ages 3–9.
Break barriers and change history on the baseball field.
Break barriers on and off the field.
Discover how Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier.
Discover Jackie Robinson's groundbreaking journey in baseball and civil rights.
Time-travel novels, Who Was? biographies, early chapter books for a first report, and the family memoirs written by Jackie's daughter — for independent readers ages 6–12.
A shared love for baseball bridges divides and sparks an unexpected friendship.
Discover the legacies of ten Black men who shaped American history.
Discover the untold stories of baseball legends who paved the way for Jackie Robinson's historic debut.
Witness the game-changing moment that shattered baseball's color barrier.
Discover the groundbreaking journey of a baseball legend.
A Black player breaks baseball's color barrier, changing history.
A trailblazer breaks baseball's color barrier, facing immense challenges.
Discover the childhoods of iconic Americans and their journeys to greatness.
Break barriers in baseball's historic moment.
A young boy's talent challenges racial barriers in baseball.
Can Marty find courage like Jackie Robinson in a time-travel adventure against prejudice and peer pressure?
A trailblazer shatters baseball's color barrier, igniting a legacy of equality and change.
