Casey at the Bat - Hardcover

Thayer, Ernest Lawrence

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0879237228 ISBN 13: 9780879237226

Publisher: David R. Godine Publisher, 1988

Synopsis

A narrative poem about a celebrated baseball player who strikes out at the crucial moment of a game.

About this title

About the Author:

Patricia Polacco is the prolific author and illustrator of over fifty picture books, and has received over 75 awards and honors for her work. She is also an energetic and enthusiastic public speaker--she visits over 100 classrooms every year. She lives in Union City, Michigan.

From School Library Journal:

Grade 4 Up Readers get two publications here: the illustrated poem (some 20 pages) and an essay loosely based on the poem by Donald Hall (10 pages). The poem is presented in two stanzas per page, each with a facing picture. Visually conditioned for the game, the classic story begins with two miserable scowling fans to emphasize the less-than-brilliant outlook for Mudville. Moser's watercolors serve well the job of making readers believers by portraying gestures and postures of real baseball players. The last painting of the deserted, long shadowed street outside the ballpark is Hopper-like in its evocation of loneliness and sorrow. Yet there is an air of journalistic factuality, as if the poem were one reporter's version of the game and the pictures were the photographs printed with it. Hall's personal reflections on the ``one-poem poet'' and the poem's history are for those intrigued by this famous ballad. He touches on the era of ``speaking pieces,'' a simpler time when elocution was valued, and analyzes the structure of the writing which made ``Casey'' a natural for recitation. Nor does Hall neglect the implications of compulsive failure for the political times. Such double excellence surely deserves to be recognized by libraries of all kinds. Kenneth Marantz, Art Education Department, Ohio State University, Columbus
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: David R. Godine Publisher
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0879237228
• ISBN 13: 9780879237226
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 31
• Illustrator: Moser Barry