Mellage, Nanette
(Nanette VanWright Mellage)

PERSONAL:

Female.

ADDRESSES:

Agent—c/o Author Mail, Troll/BridgeWater Books, 100 Corporate Dr., Mahwah, NJ 07430-2041.

CAREER:

Writer.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Carter G. Woodson Book Award, 2002, for Coming Home.

WRITINGS:

FOR CHILDREN

See Me Grow, Head to Toe!, illustrated by Keaf Holliday, Golden Books (Racine, WI), 1996.

Coming Home: A Story of Josh Gibson, Baseball's Greatest Home Run Hitter, illustrated by Cornelius Van Wright and Ying-Hwa Hu, Troll/BridgeWater (Mahwah, NJ), 2001.

SIDELIGHTS:

In the illustrated Coming Home: A Story of Josh Gibson, Baseball's Greatest Home Run Hitter, Nanette Mellage tells the story of the Negro League baseball great. Considered by many baseball aficionados to be the best hitter who every played the game, Gibson unfortunately played in the days of segregation and never got the chance to participate in the then-all-white major league circuit, thus depriving many of ever seeing him perform. In the book, the story is told through a grandfather as he talks about the Negro League with his grandson while the two look over an old album of baseball cards. The grandfather relates seeing Gibson play in a Negro League Championship game as Gibson's team, the Homestead Greys of Pittsburgh, won the championship at Yankee Stadium. The grandfather remembers seeing Gibson hit a home run out of the park, a feat still recalled with awe by baseball fans. The book also includes an appendix with historical notes about segregation in the United States. Writing in Booklist, Gillian Engberg called the book "more suspenseful sports narrative … than biography." A Publishers Weekly contributor noted that the author's "easy conversational rhythm accommodates naturalsounding descriptions." In a review in the School Library Journal, Roxanne Burg believed that the picture book "will be useful as a discussion starter or to supplement units on history or sports."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, March 1, 2001, Gillian Engberg, review of Coming Home: A Story of Josh Gibson, Baseball's Greatest Home Run Hitter, p. 1284.

Publishers Weekly, April 9, 2001, review of Coming Home, p. 73.

School Library Journal, May, 2001, Roxanne Burg, review of Coming Home, p. 144.

ONLINE

Children'slit.com,http://www.childrenslit.com/ (April 23, 2006), Charles Wyman, review of Coming Home.