Casey at the Bat: A
Ballad of the Republic Sung in the Year 1888
Author: Ernest L. Thayer
Illustrator: Christopher Bing
Publisher: Chronicle
Books
Copyright date: 2000
# of pages: 32
Genre: historical
fiction / poetry
I chose this book because I love
baseball. I remembered hearing about this poem by Ernest L. Thayer as a child,
but when I found out that it won a Caldecott honor award, I had to read it.
The
story is about a baseball game in a place called Mudville. The player by the
name of Casey is this cocky player loved by the crowd. In the end, it tells the
story that confidence isn't everything. I could see this book being appropriate
for a second grade classroom and up. You could use this book in an integrated
literacy lesson or for lesson on rhyming words.
The
illustrations are made to look like old newspaper clippings and photos. When
you’re reading through the poem, it’s almost like someone is telling you this
story of a baseball game that they attended and saved all of the clippings of
the event. The illustrator uses ink drawings and digital enhancement through computer
manipulation of drawings as a medium. The poem already follows a very linear narrative,
but the sepia aged illustrations give the book that extra level of realism to
build on this realistic fiction. Because of these illustrations, Christopher
Bing was able to revitalize a story and win this book a Caldecott Honor Award.
(Here's a great link for a read aloud. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-2lXQQcXb8)
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