...To The Ball Game

The day of the week, other than it being a school day, has left my memory.  It is October 1968.  Several classrooms of students are seated on the high school gymnasium bleachers.  Television sets have been rolled onto the hard wood floors positioned strategically for viewing.  History is in the making as the Detroit Tigers make a bid for the World Series championship.  The passion for "the national pastime" has filled the hallowed halls of learning in a small town situated on the outskirts of the state's capital.

Baseball (or softball) games are commonplace in our neighborhoods with skill levels as varied as our ages and sizes.  We all play to win, even if we know we will probably lose.  Our love of the sport is like a fever.  Attending a major league game is a valued rite of passage.   With eloquence in words and pictures, Baseball Is... (Margaret K. McElderry Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division) written by Louise Borden with illustrations by Raul Colon brings back memories of every game ever watched or played.

Baseball is our game...
the sport of America.
Its stories are stitched
through our nation's history.

Page by page our combined sensory perceptions about this historic pursuit are recounted little by little, layer by layer, building to the greatness of the game.  Beginning with the field layout, the equipment and the teamwork we are in the ballpark then and now.  We are one of many moving into our seats, eating ball park franks and greeting one another, collectively cheering, sighing and groaning.

We gaze across the expanse.  We hear the national anthem.  We watch as teams of players hit, run and field the sphere of possibility; never really knowing what will happen until it's done.  Our eyes see and our minds' record the terminology associated with every throw, swing and play.

Like any team sport, every individual counts.  Every player has importance; on display before hundreds, thousands of spectators.  We viewers track every aspect of the game in writing or by watching the large stadium displays.  We may be many but we participate as one.

Umpires, managers and announcers make their presence known in little and big decisions.  To follow the game, the history of baseball, is to know the history of our nation.  It's a shared experience worth sharing season after season, year after year.


To read the words gathered together by Louise Borden is to know the game of baseball.  Every nuance is explored bringing readers into the many moments which comprise the past and present of the sport as well as individual games.  Descriptive details enhance our understanding captivating our senses.  Here are two sample passages from a single page.

Baseball is rivers of people
flowing across streets,
streaming onto ramps.

Baseball is wide gates to a swirl of noise,
ticket takers,
ticket stubs,
and vendors,
selling souvenirs.


Opening the matching dust jacket and book case, pure exuberance for baseball bursts from the front and back illustrations.  On the front we see a professional in action with a group of guys, a gal and a dog on the back exclaiming over a hit as they play street ball.  A baseball stadium is placed in the background with other buildings.  Stunning opening and closing endpapers in a rose burgundy with gold etching showcase a collage of players in various positions on the field.  With a page turn a beautiful two page visual takes us into the country as a boy and girl play ball.  When the pitch is thrown, their dog leaps in the air to make the catch.  As a title page this, combined with the dust jacket and book case, gives readers a very real sense of the emotional beauty of baseball.

Each of the two-page pictures rendered in colored pencils by Raul Colon is rich in color and texture.  His shades and hues reflect time and place masterfully.  Smaller illustrations may be placed over the larger picture to provide readers with additional details.

It would be an honor to frame and hang any one of these in my home.  Two stand out for me.  Both have golden sand backgrounds.  One highlights all the many action plays, pitches and hits during a game.  The other showcases the importance of each individual drawing our attention to a player waiting for his at bat.


A tribute, an astonishing anthem in words and pictures, Baseball Is... written by Louise Borden with illustrations by Raul Colon will transport readers to another time and place.  Read it silently to yourself.  Read it aloud to others.  Whatever you do, be sure to share it as often as you can.

If you follow the links embedded in Louise Borden's and Raul Colon's names you can access their websites from more information about their work.  Here is a link to the publisher's website where additional pages are posted for you to view.

For more wonderful nonfiction titles please visit Kidlit Frenzy hosted by Alyson Beecher.  Participants in the 2014 Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge have linked their posts to her page.

I purchased my copy of this title from my favorite independent book store.  I hope your independent book store or local public library has a copy for you to view.

The Summer Of 1941

All one has to do is look at human history to realize the impact a single individual can make for good.  A community is created rallying around them in support of their endeavors.  For whatever reason, sometimes, this person rises to noteworthy status when needed the most.

During the summer of 1941 baseball yielded such a person.  A sense of unease had settled over most Americans; Europe was at war.  With illustrations by Terry Widener, well-received nonfiction author, Barb Rosenstock, has written The Streak: How Joe DiMaggio Became America's Hero (Calkins Creek, an imprint of Highlights).

It all started quietly, like a conversation with Joe DiMaggio himself.  One shy single, hit to left field, smack in the middle of May, the fifteenth.

The Yankees lost that day so no one took any particular notice of that one shy single delivered by Joe.  It didn't take long though for it to come to people's attention when one week passed with Joe continuing to get hits.  Pretty soon he had hits in twenty games.  Someone might have softly suggested streak.

When Joe had hit in thirty straight games, he started to make newspaper headlines, replacing the attention given to the war.  Here was a man from a large family, generations of fishermen, raised in San Francisco, no stranger to hard work, making a name for himself in a sport Americans loved.  For each game (and for games only), Joe used a very special bat, given great care and named Betsy Ann.

Joe followed a ritual of sorts for each at bat; rubbing dirt on his hands, giving home plate a single tap and standing wide waiting for the right pitch.  With the best pitchers giving their best pitches, still nothing got by Joe.  As Joe got closer to breaking the record of a forty-one game hitting streak, the pressure really started to take its toll on him off field.

On June 29, 1941 the New York Yankees were playing the Washington Senators in Washington, D. C.  During the first of two games, Joe tied the record.  During the break between the games, the unthinkable happened.  Betsy Ann was stolen!

As the top of the seventh rolled around things looked grim for the baseball hero; three at bats, three strikeouts.  A teammate offered hope.  Joe DiMaggio proceeded to do what he did best, work hard.  The record results are unbroken to this day in baseball history.


Baseball fan or not, you will be caught up in the excitement of this retelling of Joe DiMaggio's hitting streak.  Prior to the narrative's start, Barb Rosenstock includes a quote from Joe DiMaggio to set the stage for the type of ball player he is.  Each portion of the story builds on this, creating an ever-increasing tension.  Rosenstock writes as if she is a sportscaster relaying each portion in snippets of details.

These elements are of the personal, insider, nature.  Readers are taken back in time to those ballparks; you believe you are a spectator witnessing the actual events.  Here is a sample passage.

Joe kept hitting.  A triple and a home run in the next game, one or two more every game that week.  When he hit in 20 straight games, the word "streak" whispered from the bleachers to the press box---DiMaggio was on a hitting streak.  
Joe kept the streak alive the next week and the next.


Although the matching dust jacket and book case images differ on the front and back, they extend into the flaps on the jacket. In the front we are closer watching the ball fly after a swing.  On the back Joe is standing ready at the plate with the perspective shifting, zooming back.  The turquoise shade in the upper left hand corner deepens and brightens on the endpapers, providing a background for large font quotes in white about Joe DiMaggio from Ted Williams, left fielder, Boston Red Sox and Ty Cobb, outfielder, Detroit Tigers.  

The red lettering used in the title appears repeatedly throughout the book drawing the reader's attention to the significant text within each of the two-page illustrations rendered in acrylic on bristol paper by Terry Widener.  You might be seated in the bleachers looking out at the field, seeing all stages of Joe's batting style, going in close to see only his hands sanding the handle of Betsy Ann as she rests on his lap, or getting a bird's eye view of Griffith Stadium on the fateful day in June.  The color palette is a softened, textural blend of white, gray, brown, blue, and green hues; taking us perfectly into the past.

One of my favorite illustrations is more introspective than the other action pieces.  On the right it shows Joe seated in the locker room next to his locker, head bowed in thought.  From the left newspapers with headlines of the day cross the gutter at the bottom.  Above is a cityscape, full moon shining on a saxophone player to depict the music of 1941.


Hand The Streak: How Joe DiMaggio Became America's Hero written by Barb Rosenstock with illustrations by Terry Widener to sport fans, history buffs or anyone who enjoys a well told tale.  No matter where you are or the time of year it is, you will hear the crack of the bat and the chorus of cheers from the fans as Joe DiMaggio gets another hit.  You might even be yelling out in pure joy yourself!

Please be sure to follow the links embedded in both the author's and illustrator's names to access their official websites.  At the conclusion of the book an extensive author's note, a list of records, source notes, newspaper headlines, a bibliography of books, articles, websites, and additional sources is given.  You couldn't ask for a better nonfiction picture book about America's baseball hero.


I am pleased each Wednesday to participate in the 2014 Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge hosted by Alyson Beecher at Kid Lit Frenzy.  Please take a moment to follow the other blogger links listed there to get connected to some of the best nonfiction titles available.

PLEASE NOTE:  I extend an apology to my faithful readers for this post being so late today (or early morning) as my presence was needed for a family emergency.

Batter Up!

It may be the middle of December, decades may have gone by, but the memory is as fresh as if it were yesterday.  One of the best days of my life was shopping with my Dad for my first and only baseball mitt.  Ever the practical man, not wanting my glove to get lost or blend in with the others, mine was black.  Many an hour was spent caring for the leather and placing a ball in the glove's pocket, fingers tied to form around the shape.

Softball season year after year made for sensational summers; me loving the thrill of throwing a ball to home plate from third to snag the out or running to catch a pop fly.  When Brothers At Bat:  The True Story Of An Amazing All-Brothers Baseball Team (Clarion Books, April 3, 2012) by Audrey Vernick, illustrated by Steven Salerno, garnered a spot on the 2012 Nerdy Book Club Award Nominees list, I knew I had to read it.  It boggles the mind to think all the team members were from the same family.


WHEN WINTER'S CHILL melts into spring, back doors swing
open and slap shut as kids just home from school run outside---
mitts, bat, and balls in hand.

At the Acerra house the back door did not open and swing shut once but twelve times as all the brothers ran outside for a game of baseball.  Four sisters were part of this family, but never played ball.  It was the 1930s.

With a family of sixteen children their outhouse was a three-seater, beds were shared and dinner was like a church potluck, each looking for the first available seat.  But baseball...baseball defined their lives.  After playing high school baseball, in 1938 the oldest nine started their own semi-pro team with their father as coach.

Game after game, year after year, members of the team, the brothers, made their mark in the annals of baseball history; hitting home runs into the Atlantic Ocean, having a knuckleball no one could hit, or never competing against each other, a team in every sense of the word.  During the 1939 New York World's Fair this incredible family from New Jersey was honored, flown to the fairgrounds.

The downside of life did intrude in the form of a bad accident on the field and World War II.  But the Acerra family endured supporting one another even when separated by distance and time.  Finally reunited again, playing again and making history again, the Acerras drew huge crowds for each and every game until their last in 1952.  In 1997 their accomplishments were recognized on a national level, much to their amazement.


In her author's note, Audrey Vernick explains how she came to hear of the Accera brothers' story, how one evening she found herself having a spaghetti dinner with Freddie and Eddie.  I can only imagine the excitement of spending time talking with two of these brothers.  Her passion for their story, her skill at recreating the past for her readers is clearly evident on each page.

You can almost hear the sounds of ball on bat or glove, a runner sliding into a base or the narration of an announcer as Vernick writes in a friendly, one-on-one conversational manner.  Her inclusion of perfect points is what makes this a standout biography, enjoyable for all readers. She makes the family, the brothers and their brand of baseball live again.


Looking at the illustrations rendered with black crayon, gouache, watercolor and pastel with added digital color using Adobe Photoshop, by Steven Salerno one word comes to mind---stunning.  His blend of mediums, color choices, layout and perspective make the reader feel like they are surrounded by the past.  It's as if you've stepped through a time portal.

Shades of blue, green and golden yellow are prominent but Salerno does not hesitate to modify this if the narrative requires him to do so. Opening the story with a two page spread, he follows with a grouping of four smaller pictures and then two single pages changing his size to enhance the text.  Most of his visuals go to the page edge except for the small insets found with the text.

Salerno's ability to create New Jersey neighborhoods changing with the decades is first-class.  His four pages about the six brothers going to fight in World War II are brilliantly conceived.  While I have many favorites in this title, the last two pages showing the three generations playing ball, like the background, is golden.


Brothers At Bat: The True Story Of An Amazing All-Brother Baseball Team written by Audrey Vernick with illustrations by Steven Salerno is an outstanding picture book biography for several reasons, the easy, familiar accounting, the design, detail and skill used in the illustrations, the blending of the text with the pictures but most of all for the warmth the reader feels when they become acquainted with these brothers.  Reading this title makes you want to read more about the Acerra brothers, baseball, World's Fairs, or World War II because the past is so vividly brought to life.  I know for a fact I'm going to try to find my baseball glove.

Please follow the links to the author's and illustrator's websites by clicking on their names.  Steven Salerno has a fantastic display of illustrations from this title on his site.  Here is a link to A Classroom Discussion and Activity Guide.  Audrey Vernick had a special day at The Baseball Hall of Fame; article is linked here.  The video below was posted on YouTube by Audrey Vernick. It is actual footage of the brothers playing a game.

Ahoy! Batter Up!

I will readily admit it was the cover that caught my eye.  Two groups of men, who should not be seen together, yelling at one another over a large baseball centered between them was intriguing to say the least.  The title was the final irresistible element.

What could the great American pastime of summer have to do with pirates and cowboys?  Pirates at the Plate (Creative Editions) story and illustrations by Mark Summers, written by Aaron Frisch, is one of those books where history is blended with the glories of imagination.  It's where the improbable will have readers wondering if such an event could, or in fact, did happen.

Welcome to the ballyard,
fans.  We're in the bottom of the
22nd inning, score knotted at 47
runs apiece, Pirates at the plate.

The pitcher for the cowboys is none other than Wild Bill but believe it or not, Hopalong Cassidy is warming up in the bullpen.  The Cowboys are in a tad bit of trouble.  Long John Silver is at bat, Calico Jack is on second and (shiver) Blackbeard is next up.

Oh, oh...Long John Silver swings and hits a blazer hard and long into center field.  Giving it all he's got the Cisco Kid is reaching, reaching and reaching.  Will he get it?  He snags it and throws it to the infield.

The tide seems to have turned.  Calico Jack is in serious trouble with Long John Silver running around the bases like a freight train, stealing them as he goes.  This game is clearly getting out of control.

The umpire calls a halt, managers from both sides leave the dugouts.  Before you can say, "You're out!", the two teams engaged in a name-calling contest, are chasing each other around the field.  Wait!  Did you hear something?  Dinner?

Aaron Frisch is a well known name in children's and young adult nonfiction having authored books about sport teams which are rarely on the shelves, depending on the season.  Reading his narrative is like gathering around the radio listening to a favorite team playing baseball on a hot summer day. There is a rhythm to his words, an easiness that reels the reader in immediately.

He has a definite command of the lingo not only for the sport but also for terms associated with the members of the respective teams; throwing heat, windup, hoosegow, bow-legged landlubber.  Cadence is created with the occasional use of alliteration; big-bopping Blackbeard.  Skillful wordplay brings fun and humor to the tale.

The work of illustrator Mark Summers has garnered him numerous awards.  One, the Hamilton King Award for Best Illustration of the Year 2000, was given by the Society of Illustrators, New York. His medium is engravings in scratchboard.

In this title, not only are his illustrations stunning, they extend the text brilliantly.  When we read, warming up in the bullpen, Summers gives us a picture of a cowpoke next to a campfire, hands extended over the flames, surrounded by bulls in a pen.  His single page visuals, framed in white, are a study in a particular character, Wild Bill, Long John Silver, Captain Hook.

Every turn of page gives readers a new marvelous view of his artistic capabilities.  Sometimes his two page spreads will extend just over the center washing off into white space.  At other times the full two pages are used.  He varies placement of text using it as an element in his design.  When you believe he uses white space liberally to highlight his engravings, he throws in another pleasant surprise.

Illustrator Mark Summers' textured, realistic scratchboard engravings teamed with the language of author Aaron Frisch light up the scoreboard in Pirates at the Plate.  With International Talk Like a Pirate Day on the schedule in two days (September 19th every year), this title is guaranteed a grand slam.  Getting into the swing of the words, adapting the attitude of the players, as a read aloud this is a sure winner.

(The ending is top-notch.)

If you want to see more of the outstanding work of Mark Summers, follow the link attached to his name.  The link to the book's title, above, will take you to the publisher's site so you can see inside the book.