Cammi Granato: Hockey Pioneer (Sports Achievers Biographies)

Rating:
Summary: An excellent sports biography of hockey's Cammi Granto
Review: Cammi Granato and Women's Hockey might not be as important in the minds of sports fans as some women who play soccer, basketball and tennis, but up here in the Northland (home of the only team ever to win the NCAA Frozen Four of Womens Hockey) we are talking about something that is more akin to a religion than a sport. More importantly, Thom Loverro has written one of the best juvenile biographies of a sports star I have read in some time. Starting with the 3-1 over Canada that earned the United States the first Olympic gold medal in Women's hockey, Loverro tells the story of how the only girl playing a "boys-only" game in Downer's Grove, Illinois grew up to be a captain for the U.S. Olympic Team. The idea that Granato was a "Hockey Pioneer" is not far-fetched. Although she did not play in high school, because, of course, her high school did not have a girl's team, Granato earned a hockey scholarship at Providence. After graduation she played for four more years in Canada while going to graduate school at Concordia. While her older brother Tony became a right win for the San Jose Sharks of the NHL, Cammi became the best-known player in women's hockey. Loverro's quick paced biography covers all of Granato's accomplishments on the ice with plenty of statics and some nice quotes from the star herself. The book has lots of color photographs of Granato and a page of career highlights for those who love to consume statistics. This is an excellent sports biography for young readers, who will wish that similar books about other sports stars were half this good.