Unstoppable: How Jim Thorp and the Carlisle Indian School Football
Team Defeated Army by Art Coulson, illustrated by Nick Hardcastle
Capstone Editions, 2018, 40 pages, age 9+
Born in 1887, what was then Indian Territory and is today's Oklahoma, a young boy named James Francis Thorpe would grow up to become one of America's most versatile athletes and the first Native American to win two Olympic gold medals in pentathlon and decathlon. Jim was member of the Fox and Sac Nation, and was called Wa-tho-huk (Bright Path) by his mother.
As a boy, Jim loved to fish, ride and playing with his dogs, but because he didn't like school and kept running away. Finally, in 1904, his father sent him to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School at age 16. Though he worked a farm job off campus, it was soon discovered that Jim was an athletic phenom, a gifted athlete excelling in baseball, lacrosse, track, hockey, and football and it didn't take long for Carlisle's coach Glenn "Pop" Warner snatch him up.
But what Jim really wanted to do was play on the Carlisle varsity football team and despite being small for his age, in 1907, he finally made the team and played for them for two seasons before leaving school again. Then, in 1912, Pop Warner asked him to come back and he promised to train the now 25-year-old Jim for the 1912 Olympics, which he did, enabling him to win his two Gold Medals in .
But 1912 was also the year that Carlisle would be playing Army, one of the country's best teams. The Indian team was considered the underdogs. Did the Carlisle team stand even the remotest chance of beating such a premier team as the one from West Point?
Though Jim Thorpe's athlete career was mainly spent playing baseball for the New York Giants and the Boston Braves, Coulson has chosen to focus Unstoppable on Thorpe's early life up to and including the 1912 game against Army. He does not, however, ignore the painful and humiliating treatment of Native children at the early Indian schools, and Carlisle was no exception. It was then the practice of the American government to remove Native children from their homes, sending them to Indian boarding schools, where their hair was cut, tradition clothing was burned, and forbidden for speaking Native languages or practicing their own religion.
Nick Hardcastle's realistic illustrations add much dimension to Jim Thorpe's story. His color palette choices definitely have a aura that is reminiscent of the early 20th century and the style reminded me of the old cigarette cards that people used to collect featuring athletic greats.
Back matter for Unstoppable includes a short biography about Jim Thorpe, the members of the 1912 Carlisle Indians Varsity Football Team, a glossary, information about Pop Warner, and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, as well as information for further exploration.
I found Unstoppable to be a very informative, well written picture book for older readers. I didn't know that much about Jim Thorpe other than the fact that he was a Native American athlete and Burt Lancaster played him in a not terribly good movie called Jim Thorpe - All American that can sometimes be seen on TV. Unstoppable is a book that should be included library and classroom collections for teaching kids about Native peoples.
This book is recommended for readers age 9+
This book was sent to me by the publisher, Capstone.
Thank you, Capstone, for providing me with a review copy of Unstoppable: How Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team Defeated Army to use in conjunction with Multicultural Children's Book Day.
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