The Last Pick is a motivating read to never underestimate one’s own ability to set and achieve goals. "If you can dream it, it can happen." In this heartening book, Boston Marathon race director and motivational speaker David McGillivray shares the challenges he has overcome to inspire readers to similar triumphs in their own lives.
Always the last pick for team sports because of his small stature, Dave McGillivray drove himself to excel at individual sports. When he was 16, he set himself up for the one "failure" that would motivate the rest of his life. He attempted to run in his first Boston Marathon - without training for the event. Not crossing the finish line could have been a crushing blow. Instead he went on to complete 115 marathons and eventually to become the Boston Marathon's race director.
At age 23, McGillivray completed his celebrated 3,452-mile run across the United States to raise money for cancer research. The story of his journey and what he learned about himself will give all readers a new understanding of how to prepare for and achieve success. McGillivray's many accomplishments will convince readers that virtually any goal is possible. This book will motivate them to overcome the mental obstacles that often keep dreams from becoming reality. Order here on Amazon.
Dream Big is Dave McGillivray’s and co-author Nancy Feehrer’s first illustrated book, based on McGillivray’s 2006 autobiography, The Last Pick.
Kirkus Reviews
McGillivray pens an autobiographical picture book on his life and legacy as a race director for the Boston Marathon. He and coauthor Feehrer focus first on McGillivray’s athletic ability and small stature, which deterred him from other sports except for running. McGillivray’s persistence and strong relationship with his supportive and loving grandfather result in a goal to tackle the Boston Marathon at age 17. Readers will be drawn to McGillivray’s honest perspective, but their attention will be held by the description of running marathons, the drama of counting down the last few miles along with the text. The significance of strong family relationships and the reality of achieving personal goals make this title ideal for character education or a unit about families. The illustrations are colorful and support the story well. VERDICT A delightful true tale about dreaming big, and the effort and commitment required to make those dreams come true. An additional purchase.
This picture book autobiography about accomplished distance runner Dave McGillivray delivers an excellent role model for kids who are on the fringes, empowering them to achieve. When McGillivray was growing up, he was shorter and smaller than his peers. For this reason, he was always the last one picked for sports. Undeterred, he kept his sights on his big dream: to become a professional athlete. At age 17, McGillivray entered his first Boston Marathon. He has run in the past 45 Boston Marathons and made a career of serving as race director for racing events across the country. While the writing is a bit choppy and flat in places, Himler’s watercolor and pencil artwork is expressive and raises the level of this work.
There are many ways to meet a challenge, and they all don't have to come from inside. Two of the great fruits of McGillivray's story are that it applies to so many people and it is true. True stories let us know that our dreams really can come true.
Dream Big may be ordered on Amazon.
In 2019, McGillivray published his second picture brook, coauthored with Nancy Feehrer, which describes his 3,452-mile, 80-day run from Medford, Oregon, to his hometown of Medford, Massachusetts.
He tells the tale of how he braved the Sierra and Rocky Mountains, millions of grasshoppers in Nebraska, days of pouring rain in Ohio, the occasional rattlesnake, and intensely sore knees. On top of it all, homesickness and doubt are constant companions as he tries to achieve his dream of running from coast-to-coast. Running Across America may be ordered on Amazon.
Kirkus Reviews
A veteran marathoner recalls an around-the-world race in 2018.
Still hoofing along after literally Running Across America (2019), McGillivray offers another autobiographical outing. This one sends him over “26.2 cold, crunchy miles” in Antarctica, “26.2 miles of out-and-back loops along the Persian Gulf,” and like distances on five other continents in a single week as a participant in the annual World Marathon Challenge. Though his terse accounts of places, faces, and races along the way are more snapshots than a connected narrative, they add up to some vivid memories, and he builds climactic suspense by describing how he powers through an increasingly painful injury to finish the final leg. Every experience, though, leads to an explicit inspirational slogan: “Set goals, not limits”; “Your greatest accomplishment is your next one”; “Never underestimate your own abilities”; “Finish strong…or weak. Just finish!” The lessons continue as he goes on to describe how a later diagnosis of heart disease (“Just because you’re fit, doesn’t mean you’re healthy”) led to surgery and―because a “comeback is always stronger than the setback”―a run in the Boston Marathon six months later. If that last bit seems aimed more at adults than kids, he goes for a more general audience with a final page of alternative “marathons,” like “Read! 26 Books” and “Reach Out! 26 Acts of Big-Hearted Kindness” modeled on a St. Louis initiative. Staid illustrations place the White author front and center in stylized foreign settings, occasionally with racially diverse groups of onlookers or fellow runners in the background.
The motivational agenda definitely outpaces the storytelling, but readers will be swept along to the finish line.
You can order Finish Strong on Amazon here.