Just about anybody who listens to sports on KMOX radio knows who Jack Buck is.  He was broadcasting St. Louis Cardinal baseball games before some of your parents were even born. Because he is still active in radio and as a guest speaker at many events, children of today are still likely to know him.  Jack Buck always says, “That’s a winner!” at the end of the game when the Cardinals have won.  So when he wrote a book about his life and his many experiences in broadcasting, he called it “That’s a Winner.” 

This is a book written for grown-ups, so it’s not an easy book for a young person to read. Jack Buck is over 70 years old and has had a long career as a radio and television broadcaster.  He has met hundreds of famous people and he has a story about nearly every one of them.  He tells those stories in his book.  A young reader will know some of these figures, but many of them will be unfamiliar. 

Mr. Buck tells about his early life in the Great Depression and about his experiences in World War II.  It was after the war that he went to college and trained to be a radio broadcaster - especially a sports announcer.  Everything didn’t always go the way he wanted it to in his career. In spite of any problems he might have had, he makes it plain that he feels like he has been the “luckiest man in the world.” 

For that young person who wants to know more about the history of the Cardinals and Cardinal players and managers over the years, this is a book to read.  Since Jack Buck also broadcast NFL football games, he talks a lot about leading figures in that sport as well

If you have any thought that you might like to be a sports announcer, this is a book for you to read, especially.  Jack Buck is a Hall of Fame level sportscaster in both baseball and football. Any young person wanting such a career should read what he has to say. 

“That’s a Winner” is a paperback published by Sports Publishing, Inc. in 1999 and sells for $14.95 in local bookstores.  Rob Rains and Bob Broeg, two sports writers, helped write it. 
 
 

Matt Christopher has written dozens of books about sports stars. He writes his books for kids.  One of his most recent paperbacks is one called “On the Course with Tiger Woods.”  You don’t have to play golf to be fascinated with what young Tiger Woods has accomplished. This is one sports book that is about a guy who was a sports star when he was still a kid himself.

At six months of age Tiger enjoyed watching his father practice driving a golf ball into a net in the family garage.  At nine months Tiger picked up a club and drove the ball into the net just like he had seen his father do. At eighteen months, he was driving balls on the driving range along with grown-ups.  He used a club that his father had cut down in size.

At age two, Tiger competed in a local tournament for kids ten years of age or under.  He won. He enjoyed playing so much that he never had to be told to practice in order to get better.  He was such an unusually good player as a child that he was featured in newspaper articles and on television shows. 

Tiger won amateur tournaments while he was still in high school.  He was the top amateur player in the country and played golf during the two years he spent in college.  At age 20, he turned professional and began to play for money.  Soon he was the top money earner in golf and was paid millions of dollars to do commercials on television. 

This paperback book about Tiger was published in 1998 by Little, Brown and Company and sells for $4.95.  Tiger has gone on to do even bigger things since this book was written about him.  It does a good job telling us, however, about his family, his childhood, and how he grew up to become the champion he is today. 
 
 

The boxcar children books have been around for many years.  They provided popular stories for the parents of today’s children. New stories keep being written for the series. One of the latest is “The Honeybee Mystery,” with a 2000 copyright date.  It is a paperback selling for $3.95.  Published by Albert ‘Whitman and Company, it is available through Scholastic Books.

The four children in the Alden family were left without parents when they were quite young.  They lived by themselves in a boxcar home for awhile before finally going to live with their grandfather. The old boxcar is now a playhouse in the back yard. Each book in the series of over forty books is about their adventures.  They seem to be good at solving mysteries. 

“The Honeybee Mystery” begins with the kids going with their grandfather to buy some honey at a farm famous for the good honey its bees produce. They are shocked to hear that the bees for an unknown reason are not producing any honey at all.  They find out that the farmer is going to lose his honey business if he doesn’t quickly discover what is causing the problem with his bees. The “boxcar children” set out to solve the mystery. At the time of this story the four kids are fourteen, twelve, ten, and six years of age. 

There are plot twists in the story that lead the kids to focus on the wrong clues.  They finally track down and help capture the real bad guy.  Along the way are some adventures and some humorous events. Also along the way the reader learns a little about raising bees and the making of honey.
 
 

There is one series of paperback books where all the stories begin in a magic tree house. Eight-year-old Jack and his seven-year-old sister, Annie, found a tree house in the woods behind their home.  In it were lots and lots of books.  The kids found out that all they had to do was point to a picture in one of the books and wish to go there.  The tree house would spin around faster and faster and Jack and Annie would end up at the time and place in the book’s picture. 

In this story called “Revolutionary War on Wednesday,” the two kids end up among some of George Washington’s soldiers. It is the night before Washington leads his little army across the Delaware River to fight the British.  It also happens to be very cold because it is Christmas Eve.  The kids are lucky because the magic gives them warm clothes of the kind worn by people in the 1770’s, the time the Revolutionary War was fought.

Jack and Annie are taken to George Washington.  He tells them to go back home because he is getting ready to fight a battle.  The kids get mixed up in the blizzard and by accident end up on the very boat that is taking General Washington across the river. Because the weather is bad, some of his men are telling the general to go back and not fight the battle.  Jack and Annie, however, tell Washington he must lead his men against the British. They tell him he must win the battle for the future kids in America. 

Washington sends the kids home so they won’t get hurt in the fighting.  They go back the way they came.  Washington, of course, goes on to surprise the British and win one of his most important battles.

These Magic Tree House books are fairly easy to read.  They are a good way to learn some things about history while enjoying a story about kids and their magical adventures. Mary Pope Osborne is the author of the books. Published by Random House, the little paperbacks cost $3.99.