Mark always swings for the seats even when a single will help his team. His favorite player is Hank Aaron, who is closing in on Babe Ruth’s record of 714 career home runs. He’s even lucky enough to witness Aarons’s 700th home run and to meet him afterward. Hank kindly imparts some hitting advice, and later sends Mark a book about hitting. At the beginning of the next season, Aaron sets the new record and Mark is there to see it, too. Predictably, even as his hero makes history, his own hitting skills improve, and he becomes a better player. Leonetti sacrifices narrative ease to didacticism, causing Mark’s narration to be generally stilted and lifeless, the only slight exception being the description of Aaron’s record-breaking game. Kim’s bright, double-page spreads add some zest to the text. An afterword that provides biographical information about Aaron contains a puzzling error, stating that the Negro Leagues in 1951 were the only venue for African-American ballplayers even as it trumpets Jackie Robinson’s 1947 entry into the Major Leagues. Disappointing. (bibliography) (Picture book. 8-10)
Pub Date: April 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-8118-5662-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
In this worthy packet of information about famous players from the Negro Leagues, Winter’s narrative is marred only by a comic-book tone and exclamation points that detract from otherwise spectacular statistics and stories. Every player gets a page of text designed to resemble a baseball card, faced with a full-page portrait; some of these are close-up studies, others are fluid action shots. The illustrations have the deep contrasts and the sharp overexposed edges of antique, hand-tinted photographs. Winter provides highlights and quotations, and tells whether or not the player is in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Readers will learn that Josh Gibson was the only player to hit a home run out of Yankee Stadium; that Bingo DeMoss always played second base with a toothpick in his mouth; and that Martin Dihigo is the only player to be elected to baseball halls of fame in four countries (the US, Cuba, Mexico, and Venezuela). He closes the text with his ultimate all-star teams for the American and National Leagues. (Picture book/biography. 5-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-590-39464-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
The diet revolution, formally reserved for adolescents and adults, takes front and center stage in a picture book that purports to be a lesson in self-esteem. When faced with an acting audition in a local play, would-be actress Hillary the cat, formerly happy with herself, looks in the mirror and finds she is too round. Goaded on by her sister, slim Felice the diet queen, Hillary suddenly adopts the strict regimen of eating dry toast, watery soup, and a bowl of lettuce while working out at all hours on the stairstepper. The motives overtake story in a well-meaning but heavy-handed message when Hillary sees the much-admired actress/singer Nina Clophoofer, who is not only round, but happy and comfortable with herself. These cartoon creatures from Caple resemble a pleasant cross between Aliki’s characters and Nancy Carlson’s, but the story is too self-conscious and unintentionally inspiring: Children who have no weight problem and who have never considered the possibility of being either too large or too small may suddenly be checking their mirrors. (Picture book. 4-7)
Pub Date: March 2, 1999
ISBN: 1-57505-261-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Carolrhoda
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1999
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