In Yogi: The Life, Loves, and Language of Baseball Legend Yogi Berra, author Barb Rosenstock, in her signature style, uses a fabulous inventory of verbs: haul, outline, drag, beg, jeer, hoot, calm. But the verb that crops up on ten of the pages, beginning with the first one, is LOVE. By the last page, the reader can’t help but LOVE Yogi, and envy anyone who was fortunate enough to have known such a warm, humble, and funny guy. His amazing achievements in baseball seem just an added bonus.
Sometimes LOVE is what Yogi wasn’t getting—from coaches, from harshly teasing players and fans, from his hometown team. Yogi “still loved, loved, loved baseball. But would baseball ever love him back?” How could a reader not pull for him when the author asks a question like that? And in the end, we are gratified to learn that “the whole world, inside baseball and out, loved his fearless heart, his fierce drive, and his famous words. Always.”
Ruth Kirk, Author for Children 