Imagine Ed Koch playing baseball. If the former New York City mayor had his way, he might have pursued a career in professional sports. But as this picture book reveals, Koch needed a little help recognizing his true calling. As a child, young Eddie wants to play baseball like his talented older brother, Harold. But unlike Harold, and despite his best efforts, Eddie’s no natural. He does, however, have a gift for gab. After each game he recaps the action in vivid detail. Harold encourages Eddie to draw on his strengths by entering a public-speaking contest. Though the story wraps up a little too neatly—Eddie grows up to be a lawyer, then the mayor of New York City—its message is clear and important: everyone has different talents and natural abilities, and finding what we are good at, and pursuing it, is the path to success. Warhola’s sepia-rich watercolors, reflecting the look and feel of Depression-era New York, are the perfect accompaniment. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-399-24210-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Give this child’s-eye view of a day at the beach with an attentive father high marks for coziness: “When your ball blows across the sand and into the ocean and starts to drift away, your daddy could say, Didn’t I tell you not to play too close to the waves? But he doesn’t. He wades out into the cold water. And he brings your ball back to the beach and plays roll and catch with you.” Alley depicts a moppet and her relaxed-looking dad (to all appearances a single parent) in informally drawn beach and domestic settings: playing together, snuggling up on the sofa and finally hugging each other goodnight. The third-person voice is a bit distancing, but it makes the togetherness less treacly, and Dad’s mix of love and competence is less insulting, to parents and children both, than Douglas Wood’s What Dads Can’t Do (2000), illus by Doug Cushman. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: May 23, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-00361-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2005
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