J.J. Watt

April 1, 2018

K-Gr 3-A repackaged version of the publisher's "Football Stars Up Close" series for a younger audience. With the exception of some minor injuries described, these volumes offer little memorable information about the players. Each figure's background is written about in such a style that they all could be interchangeable: each showed athletic promise in high school, went on to excel in sports in college, and acquired a list of sacks, receiving yards, and/or touchdowns in the NFL. The included personal quotes are generic ("Nothing worth having comes easy!"), and the narratives are quite vague ("He made it look easy even though it wasn't. To become a great player, he trained every day"). In addition, the red, white, and blue theme of the series seems extraneous. VERDICT Consider only where sports biography series are in high demand. Otherwise spring for the publisher's more detailed "Football Stars Up Close" for an older audience.

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