This was a fantastic biography of Jackie Robinson. There is much detail and information here that goes beyond the traditional and oft-repeated stories about this legend. I would place this in the top five of baseball biographies that I have read.

Every sports fan and most Americans know of Jackie Robinson's story with countless movies/books/various depictions of his story, but this book taught me new things i didn't know about. A genius idea to break this down into various relevant chapters made it captivating for me. This book made me proud to learn about Brooklyn history, Robinson's groundbreaking accomplishments and the most important story in baseball history.

This was a beautiful tribute to the amazing Jackie Robinson. Like so many others, I'd heard of him and knew the broad strokes of his story. I had no idea, however, of the ripple effect of his place in baseball, sports, and, really, our nation's history. This book was touching and is perfect for diehard baseball fans. You can't love the sport without respecting Jackie Robinson's work, his determination, and the continuing legacy. I also had no idea that Rachel Robinson was such a force. Wonderful all the way around!

Ancestor Trouble
Ancestor Tr0uble Was an interesting read, discussing nature vs nurture, family similarities vs differences, heredity.

I knew very little about Jackie Robinson before starting this book. My basic knowledge was that he helped break the color barrier in baseball. However, this book taught me so much more about his life and his impact on society.

If you’re looking for a book that details Jackie’s life, both in baseball and in his personal life, then this book is for you. While I’m not a huge baseball fan, learning about Jackie’s performance and batting averages was critical in understanding his impact. It’s worth a read to get a well rounded perspective on his life.

I now have a greater appreciation for Robinson and I have this well-written and thoughtful book to thank for it!

It was particularly appropriate - and perhaps a little scary - to read this book shortly after the mass shooting in Buffalo that killed 10 African Americans.

As you might know, it was a typical Saturday afternoon, and people were shopping for the week's food as usual. Then a gunman, who had driven about 200 miles, opened fire. Our city may have had worse days, but none come to mind.

The shooter was an 18-year-old supporter of white supremacy concepts. He thought that shooting random African Americans would somehow help his cause. In other words, the victims' only crime was to have dark skin.

That was Jackie Robinson's problem too. There hadn't been someone who looked like him playing major league baseball in the 20th century. When he arrived, some people chose not to play on his team, others on other teams offered vicious taunts at him, and fans sent hate mail to him and his team.

Have we made much progress since 1947? It's easy to think about such matters while reading Kostya Kennedy's fine book on Robinson, "True."

Many of us already know Robinson's story. He was a superb all-around athlete who was picked by Branch Rickey of the Brooklyn Dodgers to break a color line in organized baseball that had been around for more than 50 years. Robinson signed shortly after the end of World War II, and after a year in minor league baseball spent a decade in the major leagues. Breaking that barrier was never easy, and it took a toll on him. But with the help of wife Rachel, who might be as classy a person as anyone in public life, Jackie survived and thrived.

It's easy for a writer to fall in love with Robinson. His story is so obviously one about good versus evil, the long man fighting ridiculous odds to bring justice to his profession. Plenty of trees have come down to tell the story. I even contributed a few to the pile when I wrote a short biography designed for school children.

It's easy to wonder at first if we need another biography of Robinson. Kennedy, though, is a good enough writer to make it work. He takes an interesting approach by concentrating on four different years of Robinson's life. There's 1946, where Jackie got some baseball lessons playing in Montreal of the minor leagues. Fast forward to 1949, when Robinson was at the height of his baseball powers. Then there's 1956, when those powers were fading and he was headed toward retirement. Finally comes 1972, when Robinson is slowed by various ailments and dies in the 25th anniversary year of his debut. If you want to call these years the spring, summer, fall and winter of his baseball life, you wouldn't be wrong.

This is a tough assignment for Kennedy, and it might not have worked so well with another, less skilled writer. He has to tell the tale of a man's life, but forces himself to concentrate on four particular years while not completely overlooking the rest of his life. Luckily, Kennedy is good enough to pull it off. The author did a ton of research into the book. I usually become suspicious when a biography has some sentences about what the subject was thinking at a particular time, and there's some of that here. However, Kennedy's version of events comes across quite plausibly, and reads well. He may be a little less than objective about Jackie and Rachel along the way, but that's understandable.

The epilogue also is worth noting, because it brings us up to date on Robinson's influence. Pioneers in almost any field, particularly athletics, pick up the nickname of "The Jackie Robinson of (Blank)." The name still has relevance to us, 75 years after his first at-bat for the Dodgers.

Other biographies of Robinson might work better for those who want the complete story. But "True" works quite well for those who are new to the subject and want to learn what the fuss is about. Take it from a guy in Buffalo - it's still very relevant.

I found this an informative read about two inspiring individuals, Jackie and Rachel Robinson. Jackie was an outstanding athlete lettering in four sports in his high school, Muir Tech, as well as UCLA,, where he was the first individual to do so. It was at UCLA that he met Rachel. After a stint in the service during WWII he spent a season playing for the Negro Leagues’ Kansas City Monarchs. He and Rachel, who had obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Nursing, married in 1946. Robinson played for the Kansas City Royals and the Montreal Royals before breaking the color barrier in 1947, playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Kennedy focuses on the vastly different treatment Jackie and Rachel experienced in Montreal vs. the US. In the US, Rachel often traveled with Jackie, who could not stay or eat where his white team mates did. Kennedy delves into the Robinsons’ relationships with club president and manager, Branch Rickey, fellow ball players and their spouses and the fans.

Side stories include that of Ira Glasser, ACLU heavyweight, and the effect Robinson had on his path in life. The final section of the book covers the Robinsons’ effect on the lives of an untold number of others through their example, their activism and their philanthropy.

Though the book transitions could be abrupt or jarring, I found this a very worthwhile read. This comes from someone who does not consider themselves to be a sports fan.

This was a great biography.
Jackie Robinson died while I was still a small child, so I never saw him play. I wanted to learn more about his contributions to sport, civil rights, and US history. I felt as though I had been a lifelong fan after reading this book.
For those who are primarily interested in baseball, plenty of information about his career in sports is presented including details from various baseball seasons, World Series, and individual games. For those more interested in civil rights and history, Jackie Robinson's role in both is well documented in this biography.
A great biography makes me want to know more about the subject. It also gives me knowledge about the subject so I can discuss it with other people. This book did both. It was extensively researched and included a bibliography full of titles I would like to read.
I would recommend this biography to anyone who enjoys sports biographies, baseball, Black history, civil rights, and US history.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this biography in exchange for an honest review.

Jackie Robinson is a person who needs no introduction or explanation on what his place is in history, even for people who have no interest in baseball. There has been much written about him that covers just about everything he did in sports, for civil rights and every other aspect of his life. So it was with curiosity that I decided to read this book on Robinson by Kostoya Kennedy, wondering what more could be written about him without simply rehashing what others have written.

It turned out to be a wise choice – this book was outstanding in many aspects. The first of which is simply the idea for the subtitle. By writing about four different years in Robinson’s life span which would be considered the season of his career and post baseball life, Kennedy portrays Robinson and his wife Rachel, who is just as important a figure in this book as is Jackie, in a very different context than most other biographies do.
The best example of this would be the first season, Spring, which details the year 1946 when Robinson played for an otherwise all-white team, the Montreal Royals. It was the year before Robinson made his historic debut for the Dodgers and it was remembered fondly in the book by everyone Kennedy referenced. It has been well-documented that this was done to prepare Jackie for the rough treatment he would receive in the Major Leagues, and it isn’t right to say that his time in Montreal didn’t have its rough patches as well. But that doesn’t take away the excellent memories shared by Rachel with Kennedy about how they were treated, nor does it detract from the overall picture created about that year.

The other chapter in which Kennedy’s work shows its excellence is the last chapter, Winter, which is about Jackie’s failing health and Rachel’s strength in 1972 before he passed away that year. The chapter’s beginning was very powerful as it describes Jackie’s struggles to travel in order to attend the funeral of one of his beloved Dodger teammates, Gil Hodges. The help Jackie received from other teammates and even how Kennedy described the sudden death of Hodges sets up the reader for a very powerful conclusion to the book.

This type of writing, save for all pleasant memories and instead providing excellent narrative no matter what the emotions of the time may bring, is present in the other three seasons as well. Whether the reader is thrilled by the success on the field for Jackie in 1949 when he was the Most Valuable Player in the National League, stunned by the realization that his baseball career is over when he made the last out of the 1956 World Series (and his subsequent trade to the rival New York Giants, to whom he would not report) or saddened by reading about his health struggles in his last year of life, this is a book that should be read by all – not just baseball fans, but everyone who has any interest in Jackie Robinson the man.

I wish to thank St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for providing a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

If you are like me, you know very little about Jackie Robinson. The author separated this work into seasons. Jackie Robinson went through a lot, and he accomplished a lot. A major accomplishment was breaking the color barrier in sports. His skills won people over. Mr. Robinson did so much more. I am going to let the reader discover Jackie's accomplishments for themselves. I highly recommend the book.

On April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson became the first African American Major League Baseball player in modern baseball. There had been others in the late 1800s, namely Bud Fowler and Moses Fleetwood Walker, until Cap Anson refused to play with or against teams with Black ballplayers. This is what started the color line that Robinson broke.

In True, Kostya Kennedy takes a deep dive into 4 "seasons" of Robinson's life and shows us not only more about the ballplayer, but also the man. Those seasons are 1946 when Robinson integrates the Montreal Royals and the International League in his long season in the Minor League, 1949, the year he is named National League MVP, 1956, the final season of his career, and 1972, the year Robinson died. There is also a section called Afterlife, which tells what his widow, Rachel has been doing since his death and the impact Jackie Robinson has had on this country.

I really enjoyed this style of biography. I feel like I have a much better understanding of Robinson as a whole person, not just as a pioneering baseball player. I liked how we got glimpses into the bond between Robinson and his wife and their three kids.

Kennedy also does a fantastic job with imagery, it made me feel like I was right there at the ballpark watching him play. He also really made you feel the emotions that he and his family felt as they were on this journey of integrating baseball and the Civil Rights movement. It was cool to see how he had an impact on other people, including people who were kids at the time he was playing and the people who lived in Montreal in 1946.

I would recommend this to anyone who is a baseball fan or history buff. My appreciation to St. Martin's Press, author Kostya Kennedy, and NetGalley for gifting me a digital copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

I knew a fair amount about Jackie Robinson after watching Ken Burns: Baseball and Ken Burns: Jackie Robinson over the years. And of course, I saw the late great Chadwick Boseman portray Jackie in the 2013 movie 42 (Amazon Prime) I grew up knowing his name and what he did, but it wasn’t until I watched those documentaries that I learned more about the man and the impact he had. True: The Four Seasons of Jackie Robinson focuses on four years in his life: 1946, 1949, 1956, and 1972, doing a deep dive into the life of the man who started the modern civil rights movement.

Did you know Jackie Robinson was court-marshalled when he served in the army during WWII? Why? He refused to give up his seat on a bus. And at the trial, her argued his case and was acquitted. This was years before Rosa Parks. Yes, Jackie Robinson always had that fire in him, to right the injustice of Jim Crow laws and make the world a better place for blacks. Maybe that was the reason Dodgers owner Branch Rickey put Robinson on his short list of “Negro” (the term used at the time) athletes who might be able to break the color barrier in the big leagues. But everybody knew Jackie had a temper. And Rickey needed someone who wouldn’t fight back, at least, not for the first three years of this “experiment.”

So that’s what Jackie, and his wife, Rachel, did. They faced prejudice and racism and after spring training in the south, moved to Montreal, Canada, where they were treated better than they had been in the south for exhibition games. Let me just say something about Rachel Robinson: she is just as passionate and intelligent as Jackie, and I can guarantee, without her unwavering support, Robinson might not have succeeded. She is powerful in her own right and has continued his quest for equality for lifting up African American children to give them a brighter future.

For three years, Jackie Robinson promised to stay silent despite the taunts and heckling coming from the stands, the opponent’s dugout, and at the beginning the Dodgers dugout. My blood went cold when I heard or read the words flung at Robinson from the sidelines. I do not know how he kept his cool. I couldn’t have. But that’s what made Jackie Robinson so great. He knew if he failed, his whole race would fail, so he had to be better than the best, even when opponents stomped their spikes onto his leg when sliding onto base. Once those three years were up, Jackie began to talk about racial equality, and he didn’t stop until he died in 1972.

This book showed me more sides to Jackie Robinson’s story, and while I normally don’t like hyper-focused biographies, I do have to say that it was a good choice in this case. Kennedy pulls in other narratives, from people who were kids in Brooklyn when Jackie started playing with the Dodgers, to what Martin Luther King, Jr., was doing while Robinson was breaking barriers. It all makes sense as you continue through the book.

All in all, a very interesting look at an extraordinary man. Happy Jackie Robinson Day, America. Let’s not forget how far we’ve come, and how far we still have to go.

I enjoyed learning more about Jackie Robinson as he was my great grandfather's favorite player. Jackie did lot for baseball.

A worthy addition to the Jackie Robinson Collection. Kennedy organizes his work by using four years of Robinson's life (1946, 1949, 1956 and 1972) to tell his story and impact on the world, followed by an epilogue covering the continued work by Rachel Robinson after Jackie Robinson's death.

Timely from Kennedy, as we quickly approach the 75th anniversary of Robinson's first MLB game.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the advance ready copy.

The story of baseball great Jackie Robinson and his rise to the major leagues, breaking baseball's color barrier, is an often told story. However, none of those other books have been like this one.

Instead of writing a traditional baseball bio, the author focuses on four pivotal years in Robinson's life and baseball career: the year he first played in the minors for the Montreal Royals (1946); the season he won the MVP award while playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers (1949); his final season in the majors (1956); and his last year of life (1972).

By focusing on these four critical years, the author is able to take a deep dive and present new information I've not seen before (and I have read other Jackie Robinson books). Especially fascinating was his look at Robinson's post-baseball life. I greatly enjoyed the information from players, fans, and others "who were there" and could provide a fuller look at his career and life outside the game.

Highly recommended to baseball fans and others who want to learn more about this great man!!

Thanks to Netgalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I'm more of a casual baseball fan than a serious one, but there are certain ball players who have always been of interest to me, even though they are before my time - and Jackie Robinson is definitely one of them. This book gives a full picture of Jackie Robinson, both as a ballplayer and as a man, and I found it fascinating.

I particularly enjoyed the way the book showed his choice to behave differently as his career moved along. The choice to recognize that during his first few years, he was a symbol, and any action he took would be inevitably generalized to all Black ballplayers - thus seen as a harbinger of the consequences if he was to actually be "the first" instead of a one off. And, once he was fully established as a great ballplayer, he could be himself, and show anger when appropriate, just as White ballplayers could. I loved seeing that this was a well thought out choice, and I thought the author did a good job of portraying this.

I also enjoyed the information on his post-baseball life - I wasn't aware of his activities in supporting civil rights and this was interesting. And, I found the information about his wife Rachel fascinating - she was clearly an interesting person in her own right, and I liked the fact that this was not overlooked in this book.

This was definitely an interesting book, and I found it well worth reading.

I knew who Jackie Robinson was, one the greatest baseball players of all time, who changed the face of baseball. What I didn't know about Jackie Robinson was how much he changed the world.

This book chronicles the life of Jackie Robinson in baseball, from his minor league days, through his major league days. It sheds light on the things he did after his retirement and how he was outspoken for the rights of the Black Americans, always striving to get their rights equaled to the White Americans. Jackie did this through his voice and presence, not through violence. He was outspoken to Malcom X (even though he greatly respected him) and friends with Martin Luther King Jr. This book shows how decades later he is still a loved individual.

The Dodgers signed another Black baseball player, Johnny Wright, to try to alleviate some of the publicity and hatred that Jackie received in his early days, but Johnny was soon sent to the minors. Branch Rickey tried to incorporate some black players to show how baseball is changing and to bring attention to the rest of America. Once Jackie retired, his health declined. He was battling diabetes, his eyesight was failing, he had a hard time moving. The Robinson Family was wracked with death and Rachel Robinson is a very strong woman who withstood not only the hatred thrown at her husband but the deaths of many family members. She has gone on to keep Jackie's name alive and set up the Jackie Robinson Foundation to honor students with scholarships, who might not be able to go on to college.

The one thing that I didn't like about the way the book was written is how it jumped around. Jackie would be up at bat, but something else would be brought up, how the kids in the Brooklyn neighbors would listen to the games on the radio or watch the games on TV at through the windows of the TV store. It always came back around, but it broke up the intensity of Jackie being at bat, or going into the slide, stealing home... The baseball depictions were very descriptive, and I could see it all in my mind while reading it. I definitely recommend this book.

This book will be released 4/12/22.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press.

This book focuses on four pivotal years of Jackie Robinson. I've read other Jackie related books and it amazing that when I read another one I always find new Information. I will definitely recommend this and I'll be adding it to my bookshelve once it is released.

I have read a number of baseball biographies and a number of biographies on Jackie Robinson, including his own autobiography. I really liked the way Kostya Kennedy approached this book and Robinson's life. Kennedy focuses on four "transformative" years of Robinson's career and doing so we get a richer, fuller, more informative picture of Robinson. I didn't think there was a lot more I could learn, but I was wrong. If you are a fan of baseball, biographies, even social justice, etc. I highly recommend this book.

The story of Jackie Robinson and his baseball career is told with today's awareness of racial injustice. There are heartbreaking and uplifting moments as Robinson was a leader in the civil rights movement without violence. The story is told in a way for non-baseball experts to appreciate.