URL lernersports.com/student/

Grade Gr 2-5

Cost The Lerner website offers a list price of $266.65 per year with a 25 percent discount for schools, or $199.99.

Content At the top of the landing page is a search box for students who already have a subject in mind. Beneath this is a menu strip with icon buttons representing several sports: basketball, American football, baseball, soccer, hockey, and tennis, plus one each for Olympics and “More Sports.” Each button redirects to a menu page with image cards depicting and naming anywhere from a couple dozen to several dozen athletes, teams, or events. This main menu takes up much of the top half of the screen but can be easily minimized to the top with a clearly visible carat button.

Below the menu strip is an image linked to a “featured” article that changes with each visit or reload. Beneath this is a sliding band of smaller images linked to several miscellaneous articles for general browsing.

The “More Sports” section includes some more modern games, such as drone racing, robot sumo, and esports, as well as boxing, golf, auto racing, and competitions not always classified with mainstream sports like mixed martial arts, professional wrestling, and skateboarding.

Profiles of players tend to skew toward those from the United States, and, especially in the case of hockey, Canada. The soccer section has some more international diversity, including, for example, Brazilian forward Marta and retired superstar French midfielder Zinedine Zidane.

Most of the articles consider male athletes, but there is some female representation, with entries for several WNBA teams, as well as, for example, former South Carolina and current Las Vegas Aces star A’ja Wilson and Indiana Fever scoring phenom Caitlin Clark.

The tennis section includes surprisingly few current players—Coco Gauff, Novak Djokovic—but is rich in historical subjects such as Monica Seles and Rod Laver.

Each article opens with a large-format photo, followed by a “Fast Facts” section, including date of birth, league affiliation, lists of personal and athletic highlights, as well as a career history.

This is followed by brief sections, linked from a menu ribbon, outlining personal and competition history. For example, in the article on Dutch soccer player Johan Cruyff, chapters include "No Backing Down," about his early career; "Playing the Pitch," with some personal history and highlights; and "Lasting Legend," about his years with FC Barcelona in the Spanish La Liga.

Users can navigate by a menu bar or simply scroll through the entire article.

The layout across the site is bright and colorful, with mostly short blocks of text set off by large, crisp images and illustrations.

Photo credits appear at the bottom of each article, but sourcing is otherwise inconsistent. Some articles include a button on a menu bar at the top that opens a pop-up “Source Notes.” The article on three-time Super Bowl MVP and Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes lists and includes links to four online sources. The URLs are not hotlinked.

More consistently, buttons in the same, top-right location bring up a glossary or a list of source citations in MLA, APA, and Chicago styles. Some words are set off in bold font and contrasting color and can be moused over for a pop-up definition, for example, “Negro leagues” in the article about all-star pitcher Satchel Paige.

Information is not always current. Chicago Red Stars and USWNT forward Mallory Swanson, her name since marrying Chicago Cubs shortstop Dansby Swanson, is in as Mallory Pugh, her birth name. She married in 2022. The article on Buffalo Bills QB Josh Allen, a perennial standout, includes no details later than the 2021 AFC title game.

According to the publisher, 16 new articles have been added this spring, including four new drone sports, six new sports VIPs, and six new “WNBA Hot Tickets.” Additional articles will be added for the fall.

User Experience Students do not need to log in or share credentials. Users employ an authenticated URL that can be shared within an LMS or by email and which is remembered on a device for one year or until cookies are cleared.

An admin interface includes graphs showing usage statistics, such as most-read articles and the number of logins and article views by date. A resources section consists of graphic organizers and activity guides.

Breadcrumb navigation appears at the top of every article to take readers back either to the sport’s menu page or the homepage. The database logo also serves as a home button.

Verdict The resource suffers from uneven updating and poor sourcing, making it less useful for student research. But it makes up for its deficits with ease of navigation, engaging design, colloquial yet informative writing, and breadth of coverage, as well as low cost. A deserving choice for browsing and independent reading, this is recommended for libraries serving younger sports fans.

Bob Hassett, Luther Jackson M.S., Falls Church, VA