This upbeat but uneven book draws from the history of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League and the famous song “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” Carey (Milly and the Macy’s Parade, 2002, etc.) takes Katie Casey, who in the famous song “was baseball mad,” and imagines that she was recruited for the women’s league, founded in 1943 when many professional male players joined the military. A scout recruits Katie, who is inept at stereotypical female pastimes like cooking but great at baseball, for the Kenosha Comets. On opening day, she hits a grand-slam to win the game. The inclusion of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” a song about a girl on a date rooting for “the boys,” and the title word “pigtails,” a term more associated with young children than professional athletes, both seem at odds with the book’s role described in the author’s note as a “tribute” to the “women” of the AAGPBL. But even more jarring is the style of illustration, which portrays all the players as slim and perky, unlike many of the real, often muscular, players. Accuracy is further undermined by the picture of a dark-skinned player being scouted, giving the impression that the AAGPBL had African-American players, which it did not. A more accurate and engaging picture book on the same subject is Dirt on Their Skirts: The Story of the Young Women Who Won the World Championship (2000), by Doreen Rappaport and Lyndall Callan, with illustrations by E.B. Lewis, that shows sturdy players and include photographs of them on the endpapers. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: April 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-439-18305-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2003
One of the watershed moments in African-American history—the defeat of James Braddock at the hands of Joe Louis—is here given an earnest picture-book treatment. Despite his lack of athletic ability, Sammy wants desperately to be a great boxer, like his hero, getting boxing lessons from his friend Ernie in exchange for help with schoolwork. However hard he tries, though, Sammy just can’t box, and his father comforts him, reminding him that he doesn’t need to box: Joe Louis has shown him that he “can be the champion at anything [he] want[s].” The high point of this offering is the big fight itself, everyone crowded around the radio in Mister Jake’s general store, the imagined fight scenes played out in soft-edged sepia frames. The main story, however, is so bent on providing Sammy and the reader with object lessons that all subtlety is lost, as Mister Jake, Sammy’s father, and even Ernie hammer home the message. Both text and oil-on-canvas-paper illustrations go for the obvious angle, making the effort as a whole worthy, but just a little too heavy-handed. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: May 1, 2004
ISBN: 1-58430-161-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Lee & Low Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2004
An inspiring story of young boy's compelling desire to read. As a boy of nine, Booker works in a salt mine from the dark of early morning to the gloom of night, hungry for a meal, but even hungrier to learn to read. Readers follow him on his quest in Malden, Virginia, where he finds inspiration in a man ``brown as me'' reading a newspaper on a street corner. An alphabet book helps, but Booker can't make the connection to words. Seeking out ``that brown face of hope'' once again, Booker gains a sense of the sounds represented by letters, and these become his deliverance. Bradby's fine first book is tautly written, with a poetic, spiritual quality in every line. The beautifully executed, luminous illustrations capture the atmosphere of an African-American community post-slavery: the drudgery of days consumed by back- breaking labor, the texture of private lives conducted by lantern- light. There is no other context or historical note about Booker T. Washington's life, leaving readers to piece together his identity. Regardless, this is an immensely satisfying, accomplished work, resonating first with longing and then with joy. (Picture book. 5- 8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-531-09464-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orchard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1995
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