Steve Nash.

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

Given the significant role hockey plays in Canada’s national identity, not surprisingly many Canadian youth aspire to careers in professional hockey. Despite basketball’s being invented by a Canadian, it still ranks well behind other professional sports as a career choice for Canadian adolescents. That Steve Nash, a “short” South African–born Canadian who played guard for a second-tier American college team, should be selected in the first round of the 1996 National Basketball Association (NBA) entry draft is a significant happening, but when he then goes on to win the league’s Most Valuable Player (MVP) award in consecutive years, his life naturally becomes the stuff for a book. The authors who has a sports background, clarifies that the contents of Steve Nash are based on secondary sources. Like most biographies, Steve Nash is essentially structured chronologically and follows Nash’s life up to the 2006–07 NBA season. Periodically, the main text is interrupted by various asides such as “Career Highlights” and stats charts. The contents are not limited solely to Nash’s NBA point guard career with the Phoenix Suns and Houston Mavericks but also include his playing internationally for Canada’s national basketball team as well as his work with a charitable foundation he established. Printed on glossy paper, the book is generously illustrated with full-colour photographs, many of them full-page action shots. While Steve Nash is a readable, workmanlike biography for the casual basketball fan, aficionados would be better served by Jeff Rud's Steve Nash: The Making of an MVP. Recommended.