Only for the most dedicated fans of the company.
A sanitized retrospective on the days before Nike was Nike.
In 1962, Phil Knight is 24 years old, an MBA living in his parents’ house again, searching for a direction for his life. While on a run, he returns to an idea he had in college: importing Japanese track and field shoes and selling them in America. Knight heads to Japan and a meeting with the Onitsuka shoe company, makers of the Tiger flat—a term Knight never explains. Through luck and moxie, he forms a partnership with Onitsuka and names his company Blue Ribbon Sports. With the help of dedicated employees, over the next 10 years Blue Ribbon sells more and more shoes, held back only by bankers and Onitsuka itself. Knight is personally successful, too, falling in love, getting married and having a child. When Blue Ribbon is renamed Nike, it is a turning point that concludes the memoir. A final chapter covers the next eight years, detailing some of Nike’s successes and setbacks. This memoir is more focused on 1960s accounting practices and interpersonal dynamics than the shoes—and what else would you want to read about when it comes to Nike?
Only for the most dedicated fans of the company. (Memoir. 12-16)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5344-0118-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2017
SEEN & HEARD
Definitely on a mission, but some sense of the woman beneath the robes comes through.
An analytical view of the personal and cultural values that make the Supreme Court’s first Hispanic and third woman justice an admirable role model.
Emphasizing Sotomayor’s affinity to minority readers in particular, Mendoza highlights the influences of Nuyorican community spirit (“the wonderful optimism of being bicultural”) and “Island Girl Values” along with the personal discipline required to live with childhood diabetes in forming her subject’s character. Sotomayor’s youth and career acquire a shine of legend as she goes from early ambitions to be the “Latina Perry Mason” (a phrase the author loves enough to use repeatedly) through law school and up the ladder of responsibility. Her attainment of the stratospheric bench where “she was meant to be all along,” leading the “Rock Star Life” of a Supreme Court justice, is presented as destiny. Wowza. The prose, though rough-hewn (“The value of education was always engrained in her brain”), is at least less mannered than the free verse of Carmen T. Bernier-Grand’s eponymous profile, illustrated by Thomas Gonzalez (2010), and the biographical details end with a note on a 2015 award.
Definitely on a mission, but some sense of the woman beneath the robes comes through. (notes, bibliography) (Biography. 12-14)Pub Date: April 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-942186-09-0
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Zest Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2017
Powerful, engaging, and enlightening.
The parallel lives and work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy turn and intersect in this innovative double biography.
Murphy uses extensive primary sources to create intimate portraits—drawing on their words and thoughts when they were not in the public eye, experiences of their co-workers and friends, and the feelings of common people who heard them speak. In Part 1, April 1968, Martin prepares to march in Memphis with the Poor People’s Campaign, work that Bobby encouraged; Bobby has decided to run for president, a move that Martin privately condoned. Martin is shot and killed; Bobby must announce the news at a campaign rally in a black neighborhood. Part 2 moves back in to recount their different family histories, the questions they struggled with as leaders, the pressure they were under and the pressure they applied to achieve their goals, their respective growth as leaders in an increasingly divided nation, the moments before their assassinations, and the nation’s reactions. The presentation is objective yet flattering (the common people and co-workers consulted loved these men). The text ends with a call to action, comparing the 1960s to our current political situation. This book brings to life the high stakes involved in principled leadership and highlights the fact that effective leaders do not act in a vacuum but take on challenges because they are passionate about their causes.
Powerful, engaging, and enlightening. (author’s note, timeline, places to visit, notes, bibliography) (Biography. 12-16)Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-64160-010-1
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Review Posted Online: July 23, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
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