Heaven Is a Playground: Amazon.ca: Rick Telander: Books

Product Description

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In 1974, Rick Telander intended to spend a few days doing a magazine piece on the court wizards of Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant area. He ended up staying the entire summer, become part of the players' lives and eventually the coach of a loose aggregation known as the Subway Stars.

Telander lets these kids speak for themselves, revealing their grand dreams and ambitions, but never flinches from showing us how far their dreams are from reality. The precursor to Ben Joravsky's Hoop Dreams.

Review

"[An intriguing account of inner-city hoops, a trailblazer of its kind."—Sports Illustrated

(Sports Illustrated )

“Funny, sad, superbly written and intensely involving.”—New York Times Book Review

(New York Times Book Review )

“Telander’s open-ended chronicle of inner-city playground basketball life is a model of clarity and restraint. No one has written a more resonant or understanding book about kids playing basketball, and few books about sports have willingly pulled together so many truths about the disappointments and dislocating fantasies of athletic competition.”—Atlantic

(Atlantic )

“Rick Telander, in his low-key way, makes us care deeply about the [subject. He also tunes our senses to the sights and sounds and talk of the ghetto playground.”—Christopher Lehman-Haupt, New York Times

(Christopher Lehman-Haupt New York Times )

“Even those who know little about the game should appreciate this intense and penetrating peek at growing up in the ghetto.”—Chicago Daily News

(Chicago Daily News )

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Customer Reviews

16 Reviews

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4.9 out of 5 stars (16 customer reviews)

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5.0 out of 5 stars Guide through Brooklyn inner city hoops, April 22 2004

By

N. Pfaff (Goodrich, Mi USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Heaven Is a Playground (Paperback)

Rick Telander is visiting Brooklyn to write a magazine article and locate all star legend Fly Williams. He plans to stay in Brooklyn for a few days, but ends up staying a whole summer. Brooklyn is a hard core place to play basketball, expecially street ball in the poverty stricken, crime filled parks of Brooklyn. Seventy percent of the boys are African American and are there because basketball is their life and that's what they're depending on to get them somewhere in life. Telander lets the kids speak for themselves in this book. It's full of real life situations and tends to be a little vulgar.
I love basketball so that's one reason this book was appealing to me, but it also grabbed my attention with the detail. The detail in all their conversations is remarkable.
A reader of this book would have to be open minded about all subjects or like basketball. This book is very intense, the players tend to get a little veral at times, but it's still a great book. I recommend this book for ages 15 and up. This is a phenomenal book, and must be read by all those lovers of basketball.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Basketball Is Life, April 2 2004

By

Tyler Smith (Denver, CO United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Heaven Is a Playground (Paperback)

I've read a few really good books on basketball -- David Wolf's "Foul," and John Feinstein's "A Season on the Brink" immediately come to mind -- but Rick Telander's "Heaven Is a Playground" is the best, for my money. This book captures not only the spirit of the game, but also vividly recreates a time (the mid-70s) and a place (Brooklyn).

Telander was in his 20s in 1974 when he went to Brooklyn to spend a summer, in part because he was in search of the elusive playground legend James "Fly" Williams, who figures prominently in the book. During the course of the three months he was there, however, he met, played with, interviewed and befriended a host of regulars at the courts in Foster Park in the Flatbush section of the borough. They were African-American boys and men for whom basketball was far more than recreation. For many of them, the game was a way of life and even more importantly a form of self-expression.

Besides Williams, Telander also met Albert King, then an astonishingly gifted 14-year-old, who was to go on to a successful NBA career. Telander brings to life the court skills of King and others, but he humanizes them, and this is where the great strength of the book lies. For example, King agonized over his talent, which brought him attention and adulation that embarrassed him and sometimes made him angry and withdrawn. Williams' incredible pure talent was married to an unpredictable and sometimes violent temperament that ultimately shortened his career.

Despite an obvious empathy for his subjects -- he wound up coaching a group of teenage park regulars, with mixed on-the-court success -- Telander does not romanticize them. Flatbush, Bedford-Stuyvesant and Brownsville, where the action of the book primarily takes place, were poverty-stricken, crime-ridden places. Many of the people Telander spent extensive time with were scarred by their environment, and he does not try to hide that. Though the book is refreshingly free of a sense of "white guilt," Telander does agonize at one point over a boy he left off his team who succumbed to drug use and was later killed.

At times funny, often poignant, and filled with a love for its subject, "Heaven Is a Playground" remains an engrossing, and still timely, read nearly 30 years after its publication.

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5.0 out of 5 stars The "Mother" to all subsequent inner-city hoop stories..., May 10 2001

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Thomas Moody - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Heaven Is a Playground (Paperback)

One of the best books I've ever read! I spent some time in Brooklyn playing 'ball in the early 80's and must admit that this book was my guideline. Believe me, this is how inner-city basketball was in the 70's - 80's timeframe and R. Telander is to be highly commended for getting it right. I've probably read this 40 times since it came out and can still not put it down. I would just die for a follow-up story of what happened to all these people (from Fly Williams to Roy Hill)...Highest recommendation!

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Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Great read for any hoops junkie!
If you are a hoops junkie of any kind, read this book. It tells all about the playground game. The players whose dreams were a reality, and those whose dreams were shattered. Read more

Published on July 15 2000

4.0 out of 5 stars Awesome book
a great basketball book for anybody who likes the playground legends and stories.

Published on Jun 26 2000 by Ben Martancik