Book Pick—Casey Back at Bat. by Dan Gutman, illus. by Steve Johnson & Lou Fancher
From SLJ January 2006 (Starred Review)
Marilyn Taniguchi, Beverly Hills Public Library, CA -- School Library Journal, 12/11/2006
GUTMAN, Dan. Casey Back at Bat. illus. by Steve Johnson & Lou Fancher. unpaged. HarperCollins. Feb. 2007. Tr $16.99. ISBN 0-06-056025-8; PLB $17.89. ISBN 0-06-056026-6. LC number unavailable.
K-Gr 4–In this winning picture book, Gutman revisits and updates Thayer's classic baseball poem. This time around (and much to everyone's surprise), Casey hits a fly ball that soars out of the park and keeps on going. It crosses the Atlantic Ocean and has an unfortunate encounter with a tower in Pisa before continuing on to the Sphinx in Egypt. Streaking through time, it passes dinosaurs (and sends them to their ultimate fate) and astronauts before heading back to Earth. The ride is uproarious from start to finish, and Gutman's broadly humorous verse hits all the right notes. This Casey is perfect for his role: smug, dense, and deliciously ripe for his comic send-up. "His arms, his legs, his neck, his lips–his teeth had muscles too./They rippled from his little toe up to his eyes of blue." Johnson and Fancher's paintings have a playfully nostalgic look, with a mix of textured papers and newsprint splashed across the surfaces of uniforms. Though "there's still no joy in Mudville," this is a fun read-aloud, and it will have baseball fans of all ages cheering. Gutman has reaffirmed the appeal of Thayer's classic.
