The Picture Life of O.J.Simpson
Jameson
1977
I bet there are few pictures missing from this picture biography of O.J.’s life. I wonder if today’s kids remember that he was a football player? Biography is tough nut for me. I personally object to anyone getting a biography before age of 50 since they really have a lot more life left! (Since I am pushing 50 myself, I might change that to 60.) Case in point, our friend O.J. Think he has had a few life changes since 1977?
I would love to hear from youth librarians about this one!
17 responses so far ↓
Library Girl // June 23, 2009 at 11:00 am |
You mean O.J. had a life before the murder of his wife?!? I grew up in the late 80s and 90s and really don’t remember much about OJ beyond the trial.
But I do think it is important to have biographies on people under 50! They may still have life to live and accomplish more and then new biographies should be written or at least updated. But often times teens and kids are required to do a book report or even short research report on a person of their choice. Most kids and teens I know would rather read and write about a current media or sports sensation then say a dead president or even an old president that they haven’t heard much about in their lifetime!
Justin // June 23, 2009 at 2:16 pm |
This book doesn’t even encapsulate his role in the Naked Gun movies.
marykelly48 // June 23, 2009 at 3:19 pm |
How about the unforgettable role in Towering Inferno? Talk about an oscar snub…
Mary
Kathleen Gruver // June 23, 2009 at 3:25 pm |
Outdated bios of O.J. Simpson seem to abound in Youth Services collections. At my former library, we had a collective biography entitled something like “Great Running Backs” and the section on the Juice remarked, “As a teenager, young O.J. was frequently in trouble with the law” – a trait which evidently carried over to later life. And SUNLINK’s Weed of the Month Club listed in their Things We’ve Dug Up While Weeding.
” But my favorite is a biography of O.J. Simpson I found 2 or 3 years ago, A Rookie Reader, I think, wherein he is described as “now you see him, now you don’t,” and who was known to run down the field, “leaving a trail of bodies in his wake.”
Yikes!
Abigail // June 24, 2009 at 5:48 pm |
Ouch!!
It’s hard to keep biographies current and meaningful to the kids –especially when they want a 200 page bio of whoever the latest pop princess or sport star or rapper is. But we do try to weed when they’ve added, oh say, three kids, two divorces, and a murder trial
Triple L // June 26, 2009 at 11:48 am |
I’m younger and I had no clue he played football. I just knew he was a creep!
Beverly Kirkendall // July 2, 2009 at 4:10 pm |
A dozen years ago, I weeded a couple of OJ titles (from the 70s) at my previous library : Juice on the Loose was one, and I believe the other was something like O. J. on the Run. Needless to say, we all got a big laugh out of that!
Erin // July 8, 2009 at 6:33 pm |
You should also check out The Story of Football by Dave Anderson, foreword by OJ (1985). A somewhat newer 1997 edition has a foreword by Troy Aikman instead.
Andrea // July 10, 2009 at 4:01 am |
That reminds me of this bio we have of Britney Spears from 1999 as a fresh-faced 17 year old. That girl’s career is really taking off, I wonder what will happen to her next! It’s only ten years old so the date probably hasn’t caught anyone’s attention, but when you see her face on the cover it’s really striking.
Edmond // July 18, 2009 at 3:21 pm |
Two biographies I came across while weeding at my first library job, in 2004:
1) a biography of Prince Charles from before he was married for the first time,
2) one of Richard Nixon from before Watergate.
Melanie // July 22, 2009 at 9:58 pm |
I found a great children’s picture book at a library book sale about OJ. I wish I’d bought it then! Or at least remembered its title…
The Beautiful Kind // July 24, 2009 at 1:51 pm |
Yes they def need to put out a revised edition with pics of the SUV highway chase.
Cathy // July 25, 2009 at 1:42 pm |
Haha, my first memory of OJ Simpson is watching the trial on TV during class in third grade!
I found out he was a football player a few years ago. I had always wondered why his trial was such a big deal to adults!
Jami // July 27, 2009 at 11:12 pm |
I’m not surprised. It’s weird though – we weeded all the bios on Mother Teresa(sp?) a few days after she died, but we still have one or two bios of Princess Diana from when she was alive.
We finally did get rid of that New Kids On The Block book when one ten year old loudly proclaimed “EEEWWWWW!”
I only vaguely remember OJ from his movies.
Whatever happened to Kato Kalin BTW?
LG // August 6, 2009 at 4:44 pm |
Oh, you’d hate the autobiography of Miley Cyrus I recently cataloged (which had an annoyingly incorrect LC call number and therefore took more time than it was really worth). We’re an academic library with Miley Cyrus’s autobiography. Sometimes things like that make me feel like crying, but mostly I try to focus on the humor of it all.
D. Schmitz // August 8, 2009 at 1:36 pm |
I wrote a bio of OJ in 1977. Now I regret having done so. Incidentally, it was the only one of the series that was ever stolen from my classroom!
TF // August 18, 2009 at 2:31 am |
I consider it very interesting (if sadly ironic) that a year prior to the O.J. Simpson murders, another murder case occurred involving a well-known African-American pro athlete: the killing of Michael Jordan’s father during a robbery in North Carolina. Yet while the Jordan homicide was a fairly big deal during the summer of ‘93, before long it was COMPLETELY overshadowed by the O.J. murders.