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Summary
Summary
A great American sport and Native American history come together in this true story for middle grade readers about how Jim Thorpe and Pop Warner created the legendary Carlisle Indians football team, from New York Times bestselling author and Newbery Award recipient Steve Sheinkin.
"Sheinkin has made a career of finding extraordinary stories in American history." -- The New York Times Book Review
A Boston Globe -Horn Book Nonfiction Honor Book
A New York Times Notable Children's Book
A Washington Post Best Book
Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team is an astonishing underdog sports story--and more. It's an unflinching look at the U.S. government's violent persecution of Native Americans and the school that was designed to erase Indian cultures. Expertly told by three-time National Book Award finalist Steve Sheinkin, it's the story of a group of young men who came together at that school, the overwhelming obstacles they faced both on and off the field, and their absolute refusal to accept defeat.
Jim Thorpe: Super athlete, Olympic gold medalist, Native American
Pop Warner: Indomitable coach, football mastermind, Ivy League grad
Before these men became legends, they met in 1907 at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, where they forged one of the winningest teams in American football history. Called "the team that invented football," they took on the best opponents of their day, defeating much more privileged schools such as Harvard and the Army in a series of breathtakingly close calls, genius plays, and bone-crushing hard work.
This thoroughly-researched and documented book can be worked into multiple aspects of the common core curriculum.
"Along with Thorpe's fascinating personal story, Sheinkin offers a thought-provoking narrative about the evolution of football and the development of boarding schools such as the Carlisle Indian School." -- The Washington Post
Also by Steve Sheinkin:
Bomb: The Race to Build--and Steal--the World's Most Dangerous Weapon
The Notorious Benedict Arnold: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism & Treachery
Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War
The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights
Which Way to the Wild West?: Everything Your Schoolbooks Didn't Tell You About Westward Expansion
King George: What Was His Problem?: Everything Your Schoolbooks Didn't Tell You About the American Revolution
Two Miserable Presidents: Everything Your Schoolbooks Didn't Tell You About the Civil War
Born to Fly: The First Women's Air Race Across America
Author Notes
Steve Sheinkin is the award-winning author of fast-paced, cinematic nonfiction histories for young readers. The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights , was a National Book Award finalist and received the 2014 Boston Globe/Horn Book Award for Nonfiction. The Notorious Benedict Arnold: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism & Treachery , won both the Boston Globe/Horn Book Award and the YALSA award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults. Bomb: The Race to Build-and Steal-the World's Most Dangerous Weapon was a Newbery Honor Book, a National Book Award Finalist, and winner of the Sibert Award and YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults. Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War was a National Book Award finalist and a YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award finalist. Sheinkin lives in Saratoga Springs, New York, with his wife and two children.
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 6 Up-Proclaimed "the greatest all-around athlete in the world" by legendary football coach Glenn "Pop" Warner, Jim Thorpe dominated sports in the early 1900s. His natural athleticism, in tandem with Warner's innovative coaching style, helped establish the Carlisle Indian Industrial School's football program as one of the nation's best, eclipsing perennial gridiron powerhouses Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Despite the fame and attention Carlisle received because of its winning team, a stark reality existed: the cultures of these same young men were being systematically eradicated by the school (e.g., prohibiting students from speaking Native languages, forcing them to cut their hair). Operating under the premise that the "Indian problem" could be solved by stripping students of their cultural identities, Carlisle founder and superintendent Richard Henry Pratt, a U.S. Army captain, vowed to "Kill the Indian; Save the Man" through any means necessary. Sheinkin has created a rich, complex narrative that balances the institutionalized bigotry and racism of the times with the human-interest stories that are often overshadowed by or lost to history. Within this framework, he brings to life the complicated, sometimes contentious relationship between a coach and a star athlete, their rise to glory, and the legacies they left behind. VERDICT A thoroughly engrossing and extensively researched examination of football's first "all-American." Highly recommended for U.S. history collections.-Audrey Sumser, Kent State University at Tuscarawas, New Philadelphia, OH © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Horn Book Review
Although Thorpe is Undefeated's star, other compelling narratives include those about the infamous Carlisle Indian Industrial School and coach Glenn "Pop" Warner. The book identifies discriminatory societal and political factors then dives deep into Carlisle's remarkable football history and the sport's evolution. Sheinkin's multi-layered approach connects various subplots, includes noteworthy cameos, and uses cliffhangers for a propulsive reading experience. Bib., ind. (c) Copyright 2017. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Young readers of this biography may be surprised that Jim Thorpe, an athlete they may never have heard of, was once considered "the best athlete on the planet." Most students at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania were shocked by the treatment they received under superintendent Richard Henry Pratt, who believed white American culture was superior and to "help" his students meant to "kill the Indian in him, and save the man." New students were given new names, new clothes, and haircuts and were allowed to speak English only. It was a harsh, alien world, and only a small percentage of students ever graduated. The child of a Sac and Fox/Irish father and Potawatomi/French-Canadian mother, Jim Thorpe grew up in a mix of white and Indian culture and was better prepared than many when he entered Carlisle at the age of 15. Sheinkin weaves complicated threads of historythe Indian Removal Act of 1830, the story of Carlisle, the early days of football, and the dual biographies of Thorpe and his coach Pop Warnerwith the narrative skills of a gifted storyteller who never forgets the story in history. He is unflinchingly honest in pointing out the racism in white American culture at large and in football culture, including headlines in the newspapers ("INDIANS OUT TO SCALP THE CADETS"), preferential officiating, and war whoops from the stands. Sheinkin easily draws a parallel in the persisting racism in the names of current football teams, such as the Braves and Redskins, bringing the story directly to modern readers. Superb nonfiction that will entertain as it informs. (source notes, works cited, acknowledgments, photo credits, index) (Nonfiction. 10-16) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Though arguably best remembered as a supremely gifted track-and-field star, Native American Jim Thorpe was also a preternaturally gifted football player, as the award-winning Sheinkin demonstrates in this biography of the sports phenomenon. Sharing the stage is Pop Warner, the man who would ultimately become his coach at Pennsylvania's Carlisle Indian Industrial School. The first part of the book is devoted to biographical material about Thorpe and Warner and colorful contextual information about Carlisle, its football team, and the state of the sport at the time (i.e., the early years of the twentieth century). With that established, the book hits its stride as Thorpe arrives at Carlisle and meets Warner. The result is history. Though never a good or willing student, Thorpe between his prowess on the football field and his triumphs at the 1912 Olympics became, as Sheinkin succinctly puts it, the best athlete on the planet. He evidences this with stirring accounts of Thorpe's games, especially his white-knuckle coverage of a symbolically important 1912 matchup with Army. But even better are the psychological insights he offers into Thorpe's character. Containing a generous collection of black-and-white period photographs, this is a model of research and documentation, as well as of stylish writing that tells an always absorbing story.--Cart, Michael Copyright 2016 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
FEW OF TODAY'S football fans know that much of the game as we now recognize it was developed by a group of Native American kids who were coerced into a Pennsylvania assimilation camp called the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, where they were coached by a man named Glenn (Pop) Warner. Before their legendary seasons from 1907 to 1912 there was no forward pass, no misdirection play, no receivers or tight ends. Along with the outsize athletic ability of the ultratalented Jim Thorpe, the Carlisle Indians' speed and inventiveness were both revolutionary and wildly successful: They went 43-5-2 over the four years of Warner and Thorpe's collaboration. Along the way, they defeated established teams like Harvard, Penn, Georgetown and Army. In today's terms, that would be the rough equivalent of the Alabama Crimson Tide's losing to a team from DeVry University. In "Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team," Steve Sheinkin recounts those mythical seasons and the remarkable performances of Thorpe, a man frequently considered the greatest athlete of all time. Perhaps Thorpe is most remembered for taking pentathlon and decathlon gold in the 1912 Olympics despite a lack of formal training in track and field. But the bulk of "Undefeated" is concerned with Thorpe's teenage years, the upstart Carlisle Indians football program and the transformation of some of the country's most tyrannized youth into its greatest team. Sheinkin has made a career of finding extraordinary stories in American history, researching them exhaustively and recounting them at a nimble pace for readers aged 10 and up. What sets Sheinkin's work apart is his willingness to tackle horrific chapters in United States history - the creation of the atomic bomb, the Vietnam War - with a candor that is unusually respectful of young readers' intelligence. His stories center on heroic actors without short-selling the abhorrent circumstances that forced them into heroism in the first place. The background of the Carlisle Indian School makes Thorpe's and the team's ascendancy even more astonishing. The institution was founded in 1879 by Richard Henry Pratt, a retired Union general, after the United States Army had succeeded in largely wiping out the country's Indians and their resistance to westward expansion. The children at Carlisle and other Indian schools that sprang up around that time were less like students and more like child prisoners of war, taken from their families, stripped of their culture and dress, beaten or imprisoned for speaking their native tongues. It was the kind of barbarism and heartlessness that undergirds much of America's development, yet it was regarded as an act of charity. "Left in the surroundings of savagery, he grows to possess a savage language, superstition and life," Pratt is quoted as saying. "Kill the Indian in him and save the man." In Sheinkin's telling, culled from extensive interviews, biographies and institutional records, Thorpe comes across as both good-natured and insuppressible. The extent to which this characterization makes him seem implausible is the extent to which it is impossible to imagine someone facing down such cruelty with little more than a relentless spirit and a pleasant demeanor. But Thorpe was, after all, a product of a time in which it was believed a man could get ahead if he just kept his head down and worked hard. It's hard to know which of Thorpe's exploits are accurately remembered and which have become embellished into tall tales over time, but for the modern young reader, Sheinkin's telling holds the kind of hearty inspiration that Old West tales used to nurture in the kids of earlier eras. Thorpe's greatness may be aspirational, but Sheinkin's brisk and forthright delivery makes it seem entirely possible. ? CARVELL WALLACE has written for MTV News, The New Yorker, The Guardian and other publications.