Rating: 
Summary: Casey and its History
Review: Our elementary school library currently has three versions of the classic baseball poem, "Casey at the Bat," by three different illustrators. This one was added because of its well-deserved status as a Caldecott Honor book (for illustrations).Since I usually make an annual Spring tradition of reading "Casey" to some classes, I can tell you that this edition by Christopher Bing works very nicely for group read-alouds. However in this setting kids miss out on the many interesting--but smaller--details that Bing has added to each page, such as a faded newspaper clipping about "the barbaric practice of using only a single ball throughout the nine innings of play..." Students are also drawn to the 1880s currency--bills and coins--shown on the page that says, "We'd put up even money now with Casey at the bat." Christopher Bing has created a mini-museum display that many children will devour like an "I Spy" book, particularly if they are baseball fans or history buffs. If you are not familiar with this wonderful poem, I'd put it in the same "classic" status as "The Night Before Christmas," by Clement C. Moore; "Paul Revere's Ride," by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; or "The Cremation of Sam McGee," by Robert Service.
| 
