Shaquille O'Neal: A Biography

Book Review

The first two sentences of Shaquille O'Neal: A Biography brought a vivid scene to mind, so I checked the book out of the library. Perhaps I could quickly picture a cold, dreary winter day in Newark, New Jersey, because I have been in Newark on cold, dreary winter days. My first surprise when I got the book home, was that the biography was written as part of a series of books to meet high school and public library demands. The "Series Forward" explains that the books were created specifically to be used by students in conjunction with school requirements and "curriculum relevance". The series is meant to be fact filled, yet "fun to read." A list of recent titles in the series of biographies include Saddam Hussein, Condoleezza Rice, Tiger Woods, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Elvis Presley.

Greenwood Press (GP) of Westport, Connecticut and London are publishers of the Greenwood Biographies, which are written by various authors. The recent title list also includes people like Chavez, Gandhi, MLK, Jr, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday. This gives a sense as to what is approved reading and relevant for today's high school student's studies. Would they find this book "fun to read?" I do not know; I did not. Although GP promises "in-depth inforrmation about the subject's life from birth" right on up to adulthood, I think Shaquille O'Neal: A Biography would be better titled Shaquille O'Neal's Basketball Biography.

There is a brief look at O'Neal's childhood from birth on that cold and dreary winter day, but the book moves swiftly into infomation about the star player's basketball career. Much of the first chapter sounds like something out of a PAD (Problems of American Democracy) text book that put me to sleep when I was a high school student. I found the basketball career just as dull with sentences like: "Game one was a rout by a 112 to 77 score. Shaq had 19, but shot 6 of 16 with seven turnovers." If students enjoy details about how many rebounds O'Neal made or points scored in particular games, they may find the book enjoyable.