HOOPS WITH SWOOPES

A celebration of sheer physicality in motion. Kuklin reprises her technique, seen before in Dance! (1998), of isolating her subject—here Sheryl Swoopes of the WNBA—against a white background. There is nothing stale about this offering, though. Swoopes appears, caught in action, all over the page, demonstrating basketball basics (“jump . . .catch . . . step . . . shoot”) as well as fancier maneuvers, as when she “dribbledribbledribble[s]” the ball between her legs, in a series of three ever-larger photographs on one page. The kinetic sans-serif typeface works perfectly with the overall design, leaping around the page in varying sizes and colors, in the case of the different basketball moves. Each turn of the page offers something different, as when a double-paged spread demands to be turned 90 degrees to see a vertical Swoopes against an enormous, yellow, horizontal “JUMP!” In another set of striking arrangements, many Swoopeses, clad in different-colored tops and shorts, vie against each other in a phantom game. The text itself is delivered in rapid-fire bursts, emulating the speed of the game: “Sheryl Swoopes plays basketball / down on the ground / up in the AIR / in your FACE / everywhere!” The African-American Swoopes herself is a beautiful, athletic, and feminine subject, of whom it is easy to see that “[h]er game is believing / in the team— / and in herself.” The whole arresting package is absolutely a three-pointer. (Picture book/nonfiction. 4-8)