Alphabet books have long been the province of toddler picture books; now comes a series of alphabet books designed for a broader audience. Mayers's (A Russian ABC, not reviewed, etc.) handsomely designed baseball volume fills each page with color photos of memorabilia, including a Honus Wagner baseball card (under ``C''), a panoply of gloves used in various positions (under ``G''), World Series ticket stubs (under ``T''), and other pictures of stadiums, umpires, scoreboards, and nutty fans. Even the bold letters heading each page are taken from authentic team logos. Snippets of baseball trivia accompany each letter, with a fair balance between the hallowed-but-dusty past and the present. Still, the basic question rises: Who is this book for? Kids still learning the alphabet are too young to be interested in the trivia or the museum artifacts, and older baseball fans may find the ABC gimmick tedious. In this season of the momentous baseball strike and Ken Burns's TV series ``Baseball,'' this may appeal to adults as a gift book, though it will probably never be read. (Nonfiction/Picture book. All ages)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-8109-1938-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
In her first children's book, Parton (the country music star) turns one of her songs into a saccharine tale about a girl who is so poor that her mama has to sew her a patchwork coat when the weather turns cold. (Joseph and his coat of many colors are mentioned but never explained.) Despite the girl's love for her coat, she is teased in school, which she counters by trying to explain to her classmates ``that one is only poor/if they choose to be.'' The logic here is as flawed as the grammar, and Sutton's illustrations, while competent, show a well-dressed, happy rural family who look anything but poor. The text is both clumsy and irrelevent (it ends with ``Through life I've remained happy/and good luck is on my side./I have everything that anyone/could ever want from life.'') An apparently autobiographical song that has a hard time standing on its own as a compelling children's story. (Picture book. All ages)
Pub Date: Sept. 30, 1994
ISBN: 0-06-023413-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
An endearing protagonist runs the first, fast leg of Reynolds' promising relay.
Castle “Ghost” Cranshaw feels like he’s been running ever since his dad pulled that gun on him and his mom—and used it.
His dad’s been in jail three years now, but Ghost still feels the trauma, which is probably at the root of the many “altercations” he gets into at middle school. When he inserts himself into a practice for a local elite track team, the Defenders, he’s fast enough that the hard-as-nails coach decides to put him on the team. Ghost is surprised to find himself caring enough about being on the team that he curbs his behavior to avoid “altercations.” But Ma doesn’t have money to spare on things like fancy running shoes, so Ghost shoplifts a pair that make his feet feel impossibly light—and his conscience correspondingly heavy. Ghost’s narration is candid and colloquial, reminiscent of such original voices as Bud Caldwell and Joey Pigza; his level of self-understanding is both believably childlike and disarming in its perception. He is self-focused enough that secondary characters initially feel one-dimensional, Coach in particular, but as he gets to know them better, so do readers, in a way that unfolds naturally and pleasingly. His three fellow “newbies” on the Defenders await their turns to star in subsequent series outings. Characters are black by default; those few white people in Ghost’s world are described as such.
An endearing protagonist runs the first, fast leg of Reynolds' promising relay. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-5015-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
PROFILES
SEEN & HEARD
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