Brooklyn book ties childhood with Jackie Robinson
Brooklyn BookBeat
When Jackie Robinson started playing for the Dodgers, it was the first step of the Civil Rights revolution in baseball. While this historic event has been recorded in numerous books, “BREAKING GROUND: How Jackie Robinson Changed Brooklyn,” which debuts Sept. 22, by the critically acclaimed author Alan Lelchuk offers several revealing insights about Jackie Robinson’s career from an unusual perspective.
First, it is an eyewitness memoir that captures in atmospheric detail the impact of Jackie’s very presence on Ebbets Field from the adoring eyes of a 9-year-old fan, who saw him play often. Second, it explains how Jackie’s special personality and play affected the borough of Brooklyn and changed it forever. Third, on a more personal level, “BREAKING GROUND” tells the story of how Jackie became an important figure inside the immigrant Lelchuk household, where a left-wing father, who had felt much hostility and estrangement from both America and his son, suddenly started to learn and understand the country of his son and of his own exile. “BREAKING GROUND” transports readers from the national baseball stage to the emergence of an iconic American city, from the throes and struggles of new immigrant family to a young boy’s deepest pleasures.