The Wildest Race Ever: The Story of the 1904 Olympic Marathon

McCarthy mixes the zany events of the first Olympic marathon on American soil (cheating runners, contaminated water, pilfered peaches, strychnine poisoning) into another appealing informational picture book. The colorful cast of characters is rendered in McCarthy's recognizable cartoonlike acrylic illustrations, which follow myriad subplots, including one athlete being chased off course "by an angry dog" and another stopping to pig out at an apple orchard.

The year 1904 saw the running of the first Olympic marathon on American soil, taking place in St. Louis during the World's Fair. How fitting that this particular marathon was a race for the ages, with cheating runners (one caught a ride in a car), contaminated water, pilfered peaches, and strychnine poisoning. All this makes great fodder for McCarthy (Daredevil: The Daring Life of Betty Skelton, rev. 5/13, and many others), who mixes the zany events into another appealing informational picture book. The colorful cast of characters -- most of whom feature in a montage near the book's start -- are rendered in McCarthy's recognizable cartoonlike acrylic illustrations. As the race heats up, McCarthy picks up the pace suitably, following myriad subplots -- one athlete being chased off course "by an angry dog," another stopping to pig out at an apple orchard, and a medic driving cinematically over an embankment (complete with hats flying and chickens squawking). While McCarthy's writing can get a tad too chatty -- she peppers the text with exclamation points whose surfeit becomes monotonous -- it's nonetheless another winning title for young readers. sam bloom