Customer Reviews

Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of the Republic Sung in the Year 1888 (Caldecott Honor Book)

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I've been collecting children's picture books for over 25 years and it's been a long time since I've had a book surprise and delight me as much as this title. The creativity with which Christopher Bing has blended his own terrific etched illustrations with the memorabilia and fictional news clippings is highly imaginative and will pull you through the book. In many ways the poem/ballad of "Casey at the Bat" becomes a secondary theme yet it skillfully holds the entrie composition together. After "reading" the book for the first time, I realized I hadn't even read the poem/ballad!! There are many subtle, underlying stories hidden in the pages. The clipping which tells the history behind the racism and eventual segregation of black ballplayers lies next to an illustration where the catcher is clearly African American. This books is a real treat. If you love baseball, children's books, history or just great creative expression through art, this book will give you hours of joy and discovery.

Mr. Christopher Bing has reconceptualized "Casey at the Bat" from being a poem that appeared in the June 3, 1888 edition of the San Francisco Examiner into an imaginary news story with drawings and artifacts in "The Mudville Sunday Monitor" of the same date. In that reframing, the classic poem takes on a greater life and significance for fans of the poem.

Each page in this brief book resembles the yellowed file copies of that old newspaper, with historic artifacts strewn across its pages. You will see tickets to the game, money, confetti, articles of that time, advertisements, a baseball, a baseball card, and the Library of Congress catalog card for "Casey at the Bat." Even the acknowledgments are put into this format.

But this would all be but window-dressing if it were not such a powerful poem that has captured the imaginations of baseball fans for generations.

"The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine . . . ."

"The score stood four to two with but one inning more to play."

Everyone hopes that Casey will get to bat, but that's unlikely. But a miracle happens.

"For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat."

Then comes the most famous and exciting at-bat in fictional baseball history.

Alas, like the Red Sox since Babe Ruth left for New York, the end is disappointment for the fans.

This book will make a wonderful gift for the baseball fan who has everything.

After you finish oohing and aahing over the great illustrations and reliving your pleasure in the poem, I suggest that you reflect over the famous at-bats that have occurred in real baseball games. Which one is your favorite? For me, none can match Kirk Gibson's hobbling home run to help the Dodgers top the Mets in Shea Stadium in the final game of the National League Championship Series and go onto the World Series. I still get chills thinking about that. Reggie Jackson's third home run in the same World Series game comes close as a thrill.

Wait for a good pitch, and hit it out of the park!

Our elementary school library currently has three versions of the classic baseball poem, "Casey at the Bat," by three different illustrators. This one was added because of its well-deserved status as a Caldecott Honor book (for illustrations).

Since I usually make an annual Spring tradition of reading "Casey" to some classes, I can tell you that this edition by Christopher Bing works very nicely for group read-alouds. However in this setting kids miss out on the many interesting--but smaller--details that Bing has added to each page, such as a faded newspaper clipping about "the barbaric practice of using only a single ball throughout the nine innings of play..." Students are also drawn to the 1880s currency--bills and coins--shown on the page that says, "We'd put up even money now with Casey at the bat."

Christopher Bing has created a mini-museum display that many children will devour like an "I Spy" book, particularly if they are baseball fans or history buffs.

If you are not familiar with this wonderful poem, I'd put it in the same "classic" status as "The Night Before Christmas," by Clement C. Moore; "Paul Revere's Ride," by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; or "The Cremation of Sam McGee," by Robert Service.

What a wonderful rendition of one of my favorite (and many others) poems! Not only do I like this book my self (I actually own the thing), but I have found it to be very useful in school and in teaching young grandsons. The author has taken the classic poem of Casey at the Bat and turned it into a piece of art and a history lesson all in one. He has used old newspaper clippings of the late 1800s as a back ground to his wonderful illustrations. A close look at these clippings reveal that they enhance and go along with the story quite well. Not only do the kids (I use this for 3rd graders through 6th graders) get to hear, as I read the book to them, one of our classic "fun poems" but they get a great history lesson as we discuss the context of the story with the newspaper background. It is rather amazing, upon close examination, just how much extras information the author has packed into this book. Now I realize that this is classified as a juvenal book, which I think is a real shame as it will possible divert the attention of older baseball fans and they will miss out on quite a lot. That is a pity. This book is actually quite suitable for a baseball fan of any age. I know I treasure my copy at well over sixty years old...of course I must admit to still having a lot of little boy in me, still. Highly recommend this one.

Originally submitted to a newspaper in 1883, Ernest Lawrence Thayer's poem "Casey at the Bat" has become an American classic. In essence, it is baseball's equivalent version of "Twas the Night Before Christmas."

"Casey at the Bat" has become a part of pop culture, and is still one of the most talked about stories of all time. Christopher Bing takes the wonderful classic, and adds in some amazing illustrations to make for a fantastic children's book. Presenting the poem with a myriad of sepia toned images is exceptional and eye catchy. The book reads like a scrapbook, with amazing-looking old newspaper clippings that reflect the times of the story. There are also pictures of old currency and replica baseball tickets to give it a more complete feel.

The book is put together quite nicely. Again, the illustrations are perfect, and the scrapbook appearance gives it a genuine look of something that you will want to treasure with your children. This is a classic poem that every person should have the benefit of hearing. Christopher Bing's version is the best I've ever seen, and is a must for any family with children. There will be plenty of joy in your home with this book.

Christopher Bing's version of Ernest Thayer's "Casey at the Bat" is a must for serious baseball fans of any age. He presents the Thayer's classic ballad in a scrapbook/folio format, the poem superimposed against a "yellowed" and torn newspaper. For authenticity--and baseball fans are sticklers for details--Bing uses period font from the era, draws black and white line pictures resembling hand-engravings (it wasn't until 1890 that newspapers replaced engravings with the speedier photoengraving technique), and layers the whole effort with printed ephemera, including "caveat emptor" (let the buyer beware) medicinal ads, newspaper clippings about baseball, and memorabilia such as money, tickets, and medallions. I know about the birth of newspaper photoengraving only because Bing includes a lot of interesting history (and copious acknowledgements) in the newspaper-formatted endpapers.

The strength of the poem is unquestioned; "Casey" is so firmly engrained in the national psyche that the Library of Congress lists him as a real person, complete with birthdate. Dozens of authors mimicked or enhanced the piece, and the ballad's illustrators include Leroi Neiman, Barry Moser, and Patricia Polacco. Bing's choice of (mostly) drab colors will probably lose a younger audience; Patricia Polacco corners that demographic with her warm and wonderfully loopy style. Nor does Bing add any overt story features; Polacco changes the setting to a contemporary Little League game, and frames the story with some family dynamics between Casey, his sister, and the game's umpire-his dad!

Where Bing excels is context. Obviously, he displays the style and format of printed materials in his pseudo-engravature, and his fictionalized but historically accurate newspaper clippings. More importantly, however, he shows how the tight interweaving of baseball and society. Baseball, like the Constitution (Scalia and Thomas dissenting) and the performing arts in general, changes with the times. Back in 1888, baseball had one umpire, used one ball throughout the game, and lacked fences (one amusing clipping tells of a fan absconding with a ball so that the opposing team couldn't field it). In 1888, African-American players played alongside Whites, but the writing is on the wall, one telling clip hints at the eventual banning of all but Caucasian players.

Bing makes a few errors (one of his newspaper accounts praises Casey's hitting in another game, but the box score shows that he went 0 for 5), and he normalizes Casey--his face shows reasonable emotion, not the overwrought feelings that Thayer describes in his grand, faux-epic style.

However, the book casts an impressively broad net over an entire era, and look ahead towards the inevitable change. It's a great model for similar classroom projects, and Bing's research and color illuminate the reciprocity between society and game like no other. Still, this is not a book for young kids (except for those who are really, really into baseball, and who have the attention span to pour over the ephemera). The overall look is a grayish/yellow drab, with specks of color, and Bing packs in a lot of information. I believe Bing would agree that it's not the definitive or even the best "Casey" version for all ages-what could be?--even with its Caldecott honor and a legion of fans.

Bing's "copious and faithfully illustrated" achievement (and ultimately, much of the book's following stems from its achievement in research and illustration, as opposed to its entertainment value for kids) is impressive, educational, and maps neatly onto Thayer's poem. It's easy to imagine kids from older elementary school through middle school, as well as adult fans, pouring over every background detail as Casey's sneers one more time.

This is an execellent rendition of the classic American Baseball poem. Interestingly, there is some question as to the origin of this poem, and while this book does not resolve it, it offers a colorful window into Casey. Casey is of course everyman and is in many ways a springboard to enable us to think about life and our culture. For more on this, check out the Cosmic Baseball Association, where the Casey Plate is one of the most popular. Using baseball as a metaphor for the life of the mind, the Cosmic Baseball Association (cosmicbaseball.com) explores what Casey means to us -- then and now! They have a great tee-shirt too.

Christopher Bing has taken Ernest L Thayer's poem, Casey at the Bat, and presented it in a most creative and ingenious format, as a hundred year old scrapbook. The poem itself is almost secondary to his amazing and inspired artwork that includes newpaper articles and advertisements from the Mudville Sunday Monitor, period baseball cards, game tickets, money and other memorabilia, that gives readers a marvelous view of the baseball world in the late 1880s. This is a book to savor and both youngsters and adults will find themselves mesmerized by the rich authenticity and historical detail as they find something new and exciting to read and explore each time they open the book. Casey at the Bat is a wonderful read aloud story younger children will enjoy. But it will have much greater meaning for baseball fans 10 and older, who will revel in the enormous amount of information and fun facts that Mr Bing presents. As a gift or addition to your own home library, you just can't go wrong with this book!

Even better than catching a foul ball.

This book is a small treasure, and collectors who have enjoyed Martin Gardner's THE ANNOTATED CASEY AT THE BAT (which also contains every parody of the original) will also want this one as a companion book. Fun to read and handsome to behold.

My thirteen-year-old daughter has developed two loves recently - poetry and baseball. At school, she gave Casey at the Bat as her dramatic reading. Well, she sure was happy to find this book. Illustrated in the form of a scrapbook from 1888, each two pages include a two page-wide picture of a page from the Mudville Monitor (June 3, 1888) and part of Ernest Lawrence Thayer's famous poem. Along the way, the reader is treated to many other items in the scrapbook, including vintage baseball cards, tickets, newspaper articles, advertisements and bric-a-brac.

Yep, this is a wonderful book, filled with lots of surprises and some wonderful illustrating. If you have a young baseball fan in your home, then you must get this book; you will love it and your baseball fan will - mine did! Get it!