Today many children dream of playing professionalbaseball. Perhaps you are one of them. If you havegood athletic skills and you work hard, your dreammay be realized. But this wasn't always true forathletes in the first part of this century. Morewas required. A player had to be white. Blackplayers--no matter how well they could hit, catch, orthrow--were not signed up by the majorleagues.One brave black player named Jackie Robinsonworked to change the "rules," so thatall races could have the opportunity to fulfilltheir dreams on the baseball diamond--or anywhere.This is Jackie Robinson's story.

Margaret Davidson?is a prolific author of biographical books for children. Her books for Yearling include?The Story of Jackie Robinson,?The Story of Benjamin Franklin, and?The Story of Alexander Graham Bell. She has also written for the Scholastic Biography series and Little Apple Nonfiction.