Product Description

Exhilarating, all-new, kid-friendly rhymes capture the range of emotions, from winning to losing to the sheer joy of participating, that children experience as they discover the games of their choice. Jack Prelutsky, a virtuoso at making poetry fun for the elementary school crowd, includes in this inspired collection poems about baseball, soccer, football, skating, swimming, gymnastics, basketball, karate, and more. His signature lighthearted humor in verse that trips off the tongue is coupled here with the 2006 Caldecott Medal winner Chris Raschka's lickety-split, stylized (and stylish) watercolors. Every page is a blaze of color and motion. Whether Good Sports will create good sports remains to be seen, but it will prove to young boys (and girls) that reading poetry can be fun.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #598407 in Books
• Published on: 2007-03-13
• Released on: 2007-03-13
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 40 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780375837005
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Despite Raschka's (The Hello, Goodbye Window) action-filled illustrations, this collection of sports poems lacks pizzazz. The untitled verses brim with fairly obvious sports commentator clichés. A basketball player hopes to "soar above the rim," and a runner "put[s] a burst of speed on." Conversely, one pair of poems humorously contrasts the highs and lows of life on the field: a football player scores a touchdown and says, "I love football. Football's fun," but on the opposite page, Raschka pictures the same player fumbling the ball under a heap of opponents: "I don't like this game,/ Not a bit, not at all." The quick-dash brushstrokes imitate the athletes' movements. A gymnast's elongated leg stretches over her body on the balance beam and emulates the girl moving from one position to another. A baseball heading for a determined hitter trails a streak of color like a comet in the sky. Simulating the stop-animation film seen in television coverage of the Olympics, eight progressive versions of a basketball player depict his eventual delight at dunking the ball. Poems about the same sport are not grouped together but sprinkled throughout the book, and the effect is akin to clicking a TV remote through the sports channels. Although the first-person poems narrated by young athletes may disappoint readers, Raschka's high-speed artwork offers a whirl of color and breathless activity. Ages 8-up (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal
Kindergarten-Grade 5—Prelutsky's gleeful verses team up with Raschka's economic, energetic, and humorous illustrations to create a winning book. Seventeen brief, untitled poems, mostly presented across eye-catching spreads, describe the experiences and emotions of young athletes as they participate in a variety of physical pursuits, including soccer, football, ice skating, and gymnastics. The narrators display varying levels of expertise, and although they may not excel at their endeavors, they are all at heart "good sports," dedicated to trying their best. A swimmer daydreams about being an orca and then good-naturedly admits, "I swim like a fish/That's been sick for a spell./I flop in the pool,/And I flounder around./My friends laugh and say/I should stay on the ground," before vowing to stick with the activity. The short, accessible verses are easy to memorize ("I'll swing at that ball,/And I'll smack it so hard,/I'll send that ball sailing/Clean out of the yard") and are perfect for classroom poem-a-day programs. They can also be used to introduce rhythm, rhyme scheme, punning, and alliteration. The expressive watercolors-with pen-and-ink lines adding a hint of definition-affectionately capture each character, depicting one youngster's chubby cheeks, another's curlicued hair, and another's hopeful eyes as he swings a bat at a ball. Readers will relate to and root for these children at play.—Teresa Pfeifer, Alfred Zanetti Montessori Magnet School, Springfield, MA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
*Starred Review* Like Opening Days (1996), edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins, this picture book uses poetry to express the physical sensations and wide-ranging emotions of participating in sports. Prelutsky's smoothly rhyming quatrains, ideal for recitation, cover team sports (basketball, soccer, baseball, and football) as well as several individual ones and celebrate disciplined efforts as exuberantly as noncompetitive play. "We're in the blocks / And hear the gun. / We get out fast / And run run run," begins a poem about a sprinting heat; in another entry, pals tossing around a Frisbee stumble, fall, and freely admit that "[they] aren't good at all." Raschka's watercolors extend the high-energy verses without overwhelming them, showing male and female athletes shooting across spare, white backdrops, their blurred outlines often trailing arcs of color suggestive of nonstop motion. In its emphasis on the most widespread team sports, the collection leaves out some that kids are likely to miss (such as hockey and tennis). But the feelings of pride, anxiety, excitement, and sheer pleasure apply broadly, even as specific language ("I whiff on that fastball / The ump yells 'Strike three!'") will forge an instant connection with readers passionate about the featured activity. Grown-ups concerned about kids' couch-potato tendencies will want to share these aloud--just before the bell rings for recess. Jennifer Mattson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Fun book!
This is a great book! It's got fun rhymes about all different kinds of sports and games. I would recommend it for kids that are 4 or 5 and older, though -- my 3 year old has a hard time focusing on the art and following the rhymes. I'm sure he'll love it when he's a bit older, though.

A teacher's idea
My grandson's first grade teacher wrote grandparents about her upcoming class instruction in poetry and asked if we would write a poem. While I did, I also went to Amazon to buy a book of appropriate poetry. This book more than fit my goal. Beautifully done.

A fun series of rhymes
Jack Prelutsky and Chris Raschka's GOOD SPORTS is by the nation's first poet laureate and provides a fun series of rhymes about jumping, running, and other sports. From Frisbee to volleyball, first-person accounts pair with vivid watercolors to capture the joy of sports.