Whew!
Saturday and NOT up until noon…this is a rarity!
Today’s book is in honor of my brother’s half-birthday!
He’s an April birthday, like me.
And I plan on buying this book for him someday….
I know he would love reading it to his future children!
Also, my family is a HUGE baseball family.
We all played.
My parents coached.
I kept score for my dad’s teams.
My brother is a great coach,
and my dad still announces games from time to time.
Title: Brothers at Bat: The True Story of an amazing all-brother baseball team
Published by: Clarion Books, 2012
Written by: Audrey Vernick
Illustrated by: Steven Salerno
In one word: Brotherly-baseball!
In one sentence: Follow along and hear the story of the adventures of an all brother baseball team!
Favorite pages:
Likes:
- The writing is so crisp and draws you in. Just listen to the first sentence:
- “When winter’s chill melts into spring, back doors swing open and slap shut as kids just home from school run outside–mitts, bats, and balls in hand.”
- There are quotes from the actual brothers interspersed in the story
- The illustrations and mixed media, but I LOVE the use of the black crayon especially. The illustrations draw you in just like the story does and feel very warm.
- There are twelve brothers but we get to hear stories about each of them and it STILL doesn’t feel long…amazing.
- the author’s and artist’s notes add so much more at the end too!
Learns:
- Non-fiction is really awesome. I think I already knew this, and this book just confirms it.
- You can pack a lot of story in a picture book! I like how there is so much to the story but it moves along and never drags..pacing, pacing, pacing.
- Look for these fun stories. People do amazing things everyday, and we can use that to write about.
This bookshelf is filling up SOOO fast!
November is coming!
I’m prepping for PiBoIdMo and NaNoWriMo…
wow just writing that made me feel tired!
Hope everyone is having a great Saturday!
Enthusiastically yours,
KE and Singe Singe
I have heard of BROTHERS AT BAT but haven’t read it. I must check it out. I, too, am a huge baseball fan! 🙂
Today I read CREEPY CARROTS. I wasn’t going to read it because I was a tad nervous it would influence my own NIGHT OF THE LIVING ZOM-PEAS but I was at the book store and couldn’t resist. Super cute!
Night of the living Zom-peas sounds really fun, Marcie! Good for you for not resisting 🙂
I’m an April birthday too! Thanks for the lovely review. You made my day.
April birthdays are the best!
Thank you for the awesome book, Audrey!
I knew I had to have it the first time I saw it.
Please keep writing awesome books 🙂
That book sounds so cool for all us baseball fans! And maybe for those who are not yet baseball fans.
Today I read “For The Love of Autumn” by Patricia Polacco, which is not about the season, but about a cat named Autumn. It’s a lovely story, although very wordy — it took me three goes today to get through it, because I kept getting distracted. I’m not sure how many kids would sit through a reading of it. Also, there’s an adult protagonist, albeit a school teacher with a class full of great kids, and the story is basically a love story, with the cat serving as matchmaker. The illustrations are beautiful and detailed, although they mirror the text rather than adding to it. I suppose the book is intended for older kids?
I just saw this book at a school library yesterday!
That’s funny that you say you got distracted…I did too. I love her art, but it was too wordy for me…I should have asked the librarian if it was a popular book or who checked it out the most.
Kathy…I hadn’t heard of this book but it sounds PERFECT for my grandson and son-in-law who is a major sports fan…I know they will love reading it together…I will check out the author’s website and Amazon. 🙂
Today I read, “Bumble-Ardy” by Maurice Sendak. It was published this year, so I am thinking it was the last work of his before he died.
I am a big Maurice Sendak fan…and “Bumble-Ardy” has a clever rhyme and AMAZING illustrations. HOWEVER, is this really a picture book for young children? I will probably have nightmares from the faces of the pig/people…the illustrations made me feel like I was in the middle of a Pablo Picasso or Salvatore Dali painting. I hope others read it and let me know what they think…am I over-reacting? Again, I feel we have a story here that is geared to the adult who is reading, not to the child who is listening. But, that’s just my opinion. 🙂
Vivian,
I didn’t care for Bumble-Ardy either. So don’t feel bad.
~Tina
Oh, I’m glad to hear that…I thought maybe I was being an old “fuddy-duddy”…wanting to protect young children from images that would give ME nightmares. 🙂
I haven’t read Bumble-Ardy but I think more picture books are being published now that may not really be for children…I’ll have to take a look at it.
As far as Brothers at Bat goes, I read it to a sports obsessed 6 year old and he poured over the pages, looking at every illustration, and we read it three times in the same night. I think it will go over well with your grandson and son-in-law…
I read an older pb, “Dr. De Soto” by William Steig. A classic example of good pb writing with a clever ending. I won’t elaborate on it since you’ve all probably read it.
Big fan of Steig’s books!
I LOVE Dr. DeSoto.
My mother loves William Steig, so we read all his books when we were younger.
When I was younger I imagined and hoped that someday I would have a husband as clever as Dr. DeSoto….we’ll see about that!
And yes, the ending is so clever!
I have seen the cover for BROTHERS AT BAT, but never the illustrations inside. Wow, those look cool.
We read CAN YOU SEE WHAT I SEE? ON A SCARY SCARY NIGHT by Walter Wick. I could have written about this book every day this month. My two year old is obsessed with it. He asks, “DaDa, read Haunted House book?” I respond, “Yes, I will read it again.”
This book is not your traditional storybook/picture book. But, the amazing thing about seek-and-find books is the vocabulary that exchanged when looking for the objects. In this book we are looking for skulls, spools, wagon wheels, knights, etc. Lots of variety. Lots of new words for my little guy.
That’s cool, Eric…I never thought about seek and find books building vocabulary! I really like them because they are so interactive, but that is a really good point.