Sports Great Magic Johnson

School Library Journal

Gr 4-7-- The life of a black athlete many believe to be the finest basketball player of his era. ``Magic'' seems an appropriate nickname for Johnson, as every team he's played on, from high school to the pros, has been amazingly successful. Couple his teams' successes with Johnson's quick and engaging smile and a fairly controversy-free off-court life, and you have a modern-day ``superstar.'' The book provides a fairly straightforward account of Johnson's life. Black-and-white photographs, garnered mainly from the wire services, are interspersed throughout the book. There are no appendixes of Johnson's statistics and teams' records. Mention of Johnson's personal and family life is made, keeping the biography focused on the person rather than just the athlete. This book updates Rich Levin's Magic Johnson: Court Magician (Children's, 1981). --Tom S. Hurlburt, Minneapolis Public Library .

Sally Estes

The revised edition of "Sports Great Magic Johnson" has been updated and expanded by the inclusion of a seventh chapter that discusses Johnson's HIV status, his November 1991 retirement from the Lakers, and his role in the fight against AIDS; there is no coverage of Johnson's playing on the Olympic "Dream Team" in Barcelona, something that occurred after the update went to press. Also added to the new edition is a page of career statistics. Whether replacement of the first edition is necessary is debatable: Johnson's life and career remain in flux, and there will be a need for further updating in the not-to-distant future. However, this remains a brisk account that evokes a sense of the man, and it also, along with the other volumes in the Sports Great series, will attract older reluctant readers.