The Rocket by Mike Leonetti and Greg Banning

Author Mike Leonetti is back with his line of hockey history books aimed at children. In 2009 he has teamed up once again with illustrator Greg Banning to bring us The Rocket, the story of Maurice Richard.

Buy the book: | Amazon.ca - Chapters - Amazon.com |

The book is also available in Canada in French: | Amazon.ca - Chapters|

Previous history-themed children's titles by Leonetti include Wendel and The Great One, Maple Leafs A-Z, Gretzky's Game, The Greatest Goal, The Goalie Mask, Number Four, Bobby Orr!, A Hero Named Howe and My Leafs Sweater.

I am always impressed that publishers take a chance on a children's series devoted to hockey players from decades ago. But clearly the series is a success. You better make room for another hit on your bookshelves, because Leonetti's magic is in full force in The Rocket.

Leonetti tells the story of Rocket Richard through an aspiring young hockey player named Andre. Andre loves the Rocket, and he loves to play hockey. But he gets tired of always being compared to his big brother, the real hockey star of the family. Then one day Andre and his father are lucky enough to attend a Montreal Canadiens game and watch the Rocket score no less than 5 goals.

Sitting beside Andre that night at the game is the star of Andre's hockey league. He discovers that as good as this other kid is, he too constantly has to put up with comparisons to his big brother. I won't give too much away, other than to say Andre learns the other kid's name is Henri.

That night Andre discovers a whole new outlook on hockey, his brother and his family.

It is a real nice story, beautifully illustrated, as always, by Greg Banning. The 32 page book is recommended by Scholastic for readers aged 6 through 10.

Canada Reads Hockey 2009

Canada Reads has announced its list of books and panelists for the upcoming competition in 2009.

Canada Reads is a CBC radio annual contest where they determine one book each year that every Canadian supposedly will enjoy.

In 2008, a hockey book, of sorts, won. Paul Quarrington's King Leary, defended in the competition by hockey writer/musician Dave Bidini, is a novel about a legendary retired ice hockey player living in a nursing home. The novel replays his life in flash backs as he journeys to Toronto to record a ginger ale commercial.

Past winners include Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O'Neill, A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews, Rockbound by Frank Parker Day, The Last Crossing by Guy Vanderhaeghe, Next Episode by Jean-Louis Major, In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Odaatje.

Quarrington's book was the first hockey book ever nominated in 7 years of this competition. No hockey books were nominated for the 2009 competition. Instead, we will find a winner from one of The Book Of Negroes by Lawrence Hill, Mercy Among the Children by David Adams Richards, The Outlander by Gil Adamson, The Fat Woman Next Door Is Pregnant by Michel Tremblay, translated by Sheila Fischman and Fruit by Brian Francis.

These are all undoubtedly worthy, but none have anything to do with hockey. And that's why you are, and that's why I am here.

So here are some suggestions of the top hockey books for future editions of the wildly popular Canada Reads competitions:

The Game by Ken Dryden.
From Amazon.ca: An enduring classic, Ken Dryden's The Game has lost none of its luster since its original publication in 1983, and remains the one book every hockey fan must know. he Game is funny, acutely observed, and full of insight into human nature and the importance of sport in today's society. Dryden's portraits of his teammates are precise and unforgettable. Catching the balance between banter and seriousness, Dryden describes Scotty Bowman's pep talks; Serge Savard motivating teammates; the river skater Lafleur, in uniform hours early, reappearing and startling everyone into focus with a whack of his stick on the table; Larry Robinson sensing the wrong atmosphere before a game against a weak opponent and resetting the stakes with the unanswerable remark, "Gotta play it--might as well win it." The Game remains the classic insider's account of Canada's national sport.

Our Life With The Rocket by Roch Carrier
From Amazon.ca: Quebec fans revered him: They followed his accomplishments with tenacity; they taped pictures of Richard and his family to their kitchen walls, to their shop windows and to their store cash registers; and they memorized his statistics, his history and the names of his children. His season suspension in March 1955, after an on-ice brawl, ignited the infamous Richard Riots in Montreal, riots that some Canadian historians have suggested were a noisy precursor to Quebec's Quiet Revolution. In this lyrical and beautifully wrought narrative, Carrier evokes the thrill of watching or listening to the Rocket and his teammates play, the joy and agony of the Canadiens' rivalry with the Toronto Maple Leafs, and the struggle of daily life that formed the backdrop for Maurice Richard's spectacular accomplishments. Our Life with the Rocket also follows the history of a young boy, Roch himself, whose youthful worship of Richard was tempered by politics and personal life and evolved into an entirely different sort of appreciation for an extraordinary man.

Open Ice: Reflections and Confessions of a Hockey Lifer by the late Jack Falla.
From HockeyBookReviews.com: Open Ice is a collection of heartwarming and witty essays about hockey. The brilliance of the book is the author's effortless ability to make each individual essay flow from one into another. He accomplishes this using highly personal and reflective look back at hockey and of life. Each essay is part of the author's personal journey. Through his collection of hockey essays Falla is very open in engaging the reader in his struggles and dislike of aging.

What other books do you think deserve mention?

Our Life With The Rocket

Roch Carrier is a successful novelist and playwright but he is famous (and undoubtedly rich!) for his quintessential children's hockey book The Hockey Sweater.

But if you ask me, his most important title has to be Our Life With The Rocket: The Maurice Richard Story.

This book is neither a biography nor a memoir of Quebec's greatest hockey player. No in fact it is in many ways a thoroughly researched and infectiously proud all grown up version of The Hockey Sweater. It's about what it was like to be French Canadian at a time when the Rocket was hockey's most dynamic player.

In many ways it is more a story of Carrier's youth than Rocket's exploits. But Carrier's youth is mirrored by countless other Quebecers who experienced the same social and political circumstances. Richard was the bigger-than-life albeit inadvertent super hero who came to symbolize Quebecers plight.

This is what the back of the book says:

"Roch Carrier captures a world in which a brooding, taciturn athlete, who hated to speak publicly and rarely expressed opinions on anything, became a powerful, enduring symbol for French Canadians at a time when they felt painfully vulnerable amid Canada's English majority."

The Vancouver Sun nailed the book review when they said:

"In orchestrating the saga of Rocket Richard, (Carrier) composes the epic of his people's and his own coming of age, interpolating these refrains so ingeniously that they become a single."

But no one said it better than the Montreal Gazette:

"...this is much deeper than a hockey book - it's a profound social and political history, a study of a turbulent time as much as a game and one of its most charismatic players...."

Unless you were French Canadian and grew up in the era, it is almost impossible to truly appreciate the transcendent legacy of Rocket Richard. This book comes as close as possible.

If anyone wonders why more than 100,000 people filed through the Molson Centre to see the Rocket lying in state, this book should explain everything.

This book should even be read by non-hockey fans who are seeking a better understanding Quebec, the Quiet Revolution, and the separatist movement.

Bottom line - it is incredibly rare that a hockey book could be termed as important and essential.
Carrier's Our Life With The Rocket is perhaps the only one.