Reference Reviews

Doug’s Student Reference Room

Athletes and Drug Use, edited by Jennifer L. Skancke and Lauri S. Friedman. 116 pp. Detroit, MI.: Greenhaven Press, 2009. ISBN: 978-0-7377-4166-7. $37.40.

Recently, New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez admitted to steroid use, one in a long line of top-flight athletes now caught in this unfavorable spotlight. This new volume in the Introducing Issues with Opposing Viewpoints series explores the question of performance-enhancing drugs in three chapters, focusing on whether drug use among athletes should be illegal; what the consequences of drug use should be; and how drug use among student athletes can be curbed. While most of the arguments on either side of this issue are by now familiar and well-established, this volume does a good job of representing those arguments with articles that are accessible to middle school and lower high school students. Part of the value-added in this series is the quality of the pre-reading and follow-up questions. The pre-reading questions consistently focus young readers on the critical ideas of the piece; the follow-up questions, labeled “Evaluating the Author’s Arguments,” ask students to focus not just on the arguments themselves, but on the methods used to create and support those arguments. One such question asks the reader to list the credentials of all the people quoted in the article and to make a judgment about credibility based on those sources. Another points out that an author uses history, facts and examples to support his argument, but uses no direct quotes. Students are asked to identify the kinds of experts whose quotes might be added and to identify the places in the article where such quotes would be useful. The format of this volume, like other titles in this series, is student-friendly, with color photos, bold graphics, editorial cartoons and easy-to-read charts and graphs. A “Facts about Athletes and Drug Use” section after the last chapter provides bulleted lists organized under “History,” “Prevalence,” “Effects,” and “Responses” offer students ready reference facts on the topic. This section is followed by a list of relevant organizations to contact and a bibliography of print and online resources for further research, plus a general index. While this volume breaks no new ground, it is a thoughtful collection that considers and skillfully guides its targeted audience through the material. Highly recommended for middle school and high school libraries.