In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson by Bette Bao Lord

In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson by Bette Bao Lord was first published in 1984; it has aged well.

Before Bandit and her mother go to the United States of America to live with her father, she is given a new name. She chooses the name Shirley Temple.

Goodreads blurb: Shirley Temple Wong sails from China to America with a heart full of dreams.Her new home is Brooklyn, New York. America is indeed a land full of wonders, but Shirley doesn't know any English, so it's hard to make friends. Then a miracle-baseball-happens. It is 1947, and Jackie Robinson, star of the Brooklyn Dodgers, is everyone's hero. Jackie Robinson is proving that a black man, the grandson of a slave, can make a difference in America and for Shirley as well, on the ball field and off, America becomes the land of opportunity. 

Bette Bao Lord based Shirley's story on her own from when she, herself, was a newcomer to America. Shirley deals with bullying, with trying to learn a new language, with trying to understand a new culture, and with trying to make friends. 

This story is endearing and sweet. This chapter book is great for 54 year-old elementary students with good white space and wonderful illustrations by Marc Simont. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. 

Link to our NICU book registry if you'd like to donate books to babies in the newborn intensive care unit so their parents can read to them while they grow. You can also donate gently used books to our project by sending them to me or to Angie. Email me for a mailing address. We can use both English and Spanish books. If you have a graduate of the NICU, or if you have a baby whose life you would like to honor by donating books to this project, let me know, and I can make a book plate with their name for the books you donate.

Read to a child today even if that child is you.