Bobbie Rosenfeld: The Olympian Who Could Do Everything (Book Review‪)‬

Bobbie Rosenfeld: The Olympian Who Could Do Everything. Anne Dublin. Toronto: Second Story, 2004. 148 pp. $14.95 sc; I Came as a Stranger: The Underground Railroad. Bryan Prince. Toronto: Tundra, 2004. 160 pp. $22.99 sc; The Kids Book of Black Canadian History. Rosemary Sadlier. Illus. Wang Qijun. Toronto: Kids Can, 2003.56 pp. $19.99 he; A Song for Ba. Paul Yee. Illus. Jan Peng Wang. Toronto: Groundwood, 2004.32 pp. $17.95 hc; Awakening the Dragon: The Dragon Boat Festival. Arlene Chan. Illus. Song Nan Zhan. Toronto: Tundra, 2004. 24 pp. $22.99 hc. Each of these works envisions historical reconstruction--of the life of a person, of a race and social milieu, of a cultural legend. Bobbie Rosenfeld, by Toronto teacher-librarian and writer Anne Dublin, is a meticulously researched, well-written, and handsomely produced book. Rosenfeld, a Jew bona in Russia in 1903 but raised in Barrie, Ontario, where her parents ran an antique/junk shop, was named Canada's female athlete of the half-century in 1950. She excelled in many sports, including track and field, softball, hockey, and basketball. She was part of the "Matchless Six," the Canadian women's contingent at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics which won the most points of any female team, beating out, for instance, the United States, which had three times as many members.