Entertaining and informative—a rousing choice for young baseball fans.
This illustrated children’s book explains how the Chicago Cubs finally broke the 108-year drought that kept them from winning the World Series.
A billy goat, a disgruntled fan, and a curse: these are the intriguing ingredients of a baseball legend. Told in rhyming verse and depicted in comic book–style graphics, this story tells how fans in 1945, remembering their team’s 1908 win, hoped the Cubs would capture another World Series trophy. But during Game 4, a man who’d brought his smelly goat to watch the game got himself kicked out: “ ‘You will never win again!’ the man proclaimed aloud, / and thus ‘The Curse of the Billy Goat’ fell over the crowd”—or more important, the Cubs. Moving ahead to 2016, the tale details the road to the pennant and the Cubs’ Series win, noting individual contributions by players, the coach, and management. Attinella (Greatest Ever, 2017, etc.) employs lively verse to add emotion to the story. Though his scansion isn’t perfect, he conveys the building excitement as the Cubs inch closer to breaking the curse. The author writes knowledgeably about the team and the game; a gracious touch that fans should appreciate is the volume’s dedication to Cubs fan Steve Bartman. Pascale (Bru-Hed’s Guide to Gettin’ Girls NOW! Vol. 1, 2009, etc.) draws well, with his style mixing realism and cartoon elements. The artwork adds detail, humor, and drama, as in the bottom-up perspective of a player, giving him giantlike dimensions.
Entertaining and informative—a rousing choice for young baseball fans.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-0-9989440-0-5
Page Count: -
Publisher: It Had To Be Told Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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