Rating: WORTHY!
This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
This colorful book, illustrated nicely by Rohlmann and written concisely, but informatively by Leek, takes a brief look at the careers of thirty men who have not exactly gone in for a career in a regular job in an office or a factory - although some may have begun their journey that way.
Some of them you will know by name - or certainly ought to know, and others will be more obscure if your experience is anything like mine. Personally I knew just over half of them. There were some others I'd maybe heard of, maybe not, but the important thing is that I'm a lot wiser now!
The mini-bio in each case gives important details about each person and explains why they're worthy of being included in such an august list. Listed alphabetically by last name, the 'boys' are these:
- Carlos Acosta
- Muhammad Ali
- César Chávez
- Luther Christman
- Ta-Nehisi Coates
- John Dewey
- Frederick Douglass
- WEB Du Bois
- Edward Enninful
- Jaime Escalante
- Grandmaster Flash
- Mahatma Gandhi
- David Hockney
- Ezra Jack Keats
- Lebron James
- Bruce Lee
- Richard Loving
- Nelson Mandela
- Patricio Manuel
- Thurgood Marshall
- Freddie Mercury
- Hayao Miyazaki
- John Muir
- Alfred Nobel
- Prince
- Bayard Rustin
- Carl Sagan
- George Washington Carver
- Oscar Wilde
- Kit Yan
Note that this isn't the order they're in in the book. I'm not sure what order they're in in the book since it begins with David Hockney, who has neither a first nor a last name that comes first in this list, nor was he born first. The list includes artists such as Hockney (painting), Prince (music), Miyazaki (film), and Acosta (ballet), sports such as Ali (boxing) and James (basketball), as well as union organizers such as Chávez and civil rights campaigners such as Ghandi, Loving, Mandela, and Rustin, so there's a variety, including two ftm transgender entries.
I have to note that most (60%) of the people in the list are Americans, with another 13% British, leaving the rest dotted around in an assortment of other countries in Europe, Latin America and Asia. I'd like to have seen better international coverage, but given who is in this list, it isn't too bad for a start, so I commend it as a worthy read, offering alternatives to boys who might be drawn to certain interests which some clueless people might foolishly seek to dissuade them from.
