Book Reviews by Sondra Eklund
Book Reviews by Sondra Eklund |
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Rate this Book Sonderbooks 56 Previous Book Next Book Nonfiction Fiction Young Adult Fiction Children's Nonfiction Poetry Previous Book Next Book Children's Fiction Picture Books 2004 Stand-outs 2003 Stand-outs 2002 Stand-outs 2001 Stand-outs Five-Star Books Four-Star Books Previous Book Next Book Old Favorites Back Issues List of Reviews by Title List of Reviews by Author Why Read? Children and Books Links For Book Lovers About Me Contact Me Subscribe Make a Donation Post on Bulletin Board View Bulletin Board I don't review books I don't like!
*****= An all-time favorite |
****Casey at the BatA Ballad of the Republic Sung in the Year 1888by Ernest L. Thayerillustrated by C. F. Payne
Reviewed June 17, 2003.
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2003. 32 pages. Available at Sembach Library (J 811.52 THA). Several months ago, a new picture book of Casey at the Bat came out. It’s unfortunate for that illustrator that this one followed it so closely, because this new version illustrated by C. F. Payne blows all others out of the water. Of course it’s a classic poem. I simply had to take it home and force my son to listen while I read it out loud. The phrases roll off of your tongue and ring in your brain long afterward. These illustrations are perfect! C. F. Payne took for his subject a rural baseball game of approximately 1888. There’s beautiful detail in his paintings, with wonderful emotion in the spectators’ faces. When Casey comes to bat, the lusty yell of the crowd “rumbled through the valley” and “rattled in the dell,” and we see a farmer and his son listening to the sound of the stadium from their hilltop farm. There’s another wonderful picture when “the air is shattered by the force of Casey’s blow.” This book is magnificent! Look for it in the poetry section. Copyright © 2005 Sondra Eklund. All
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