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(3)
K-3
Illustrated by
C. F. Payne.
This top-notch biography of baseball's greatest switch-hitter, who played through pain almost every day of his Yankees career, has heart, passion, and impressive full-color acrylic and pencil illustrations. Winter writes with such assurance and power it's like reading one of Mantle's sweet swings. Winter focuses on Mantle's glories, but an appended note recounts the difficulties Mantle had off the field.
(2)
K-3
Illustrated by
C. F. Payne.
Pioneering journalist Mary Garber "got her big break" during WWII, running the sports page while the (male) sportswriters were fighting in the war. For much of the next six decades, she worked in sports reporting, blazing trails for female journalists. Macy's succinct text is informative and engaging, her regard for her subject obvious. Payne's soft, sepia-toned mixed-media illustrations provide the perfect touch of nostalgia. Reading list, timeline, websites.
Reviewer: Sam Bloom
| Horn Book Magazine Issue:
January, 2016
48 pp.
| Disney/Hyperion
| December, 2013
|
TradeISBN 978-1-4231-2488-7$17.99
(2)
K-3
Illustrated by
C. F. Payne.
In this picture book biography, Rappaport intersperses primary source quotations throughout the main text to capably distill Theodore Roosevelt's life. Her account of Roosevelt's political career is balanced with brief but intimate glimpses into his two marriages and family life. Payne's superb illustrations seem to straddle the worlds of fine art and political cartoon, capturing Roosevelt's multifaceted, larger-than-life personality. Reading list, timeline, websites. Bib.
Reviewer: Jonathan Hunt
| Horn Book Magazine Issue:
March, 2014
32 pp.
| Simon
| February, 2011
|
TradeISBN 978-0-689-85570-2$16.99
(3)
PS
Illustrated by
C. F. Payne.
It's bedtime, and Daddy Mouse is chasing his mischievous son from the garden to the house and into the bathroom. Says Daddy: "It's time for bed. It's time for sleep. / No more time for hide-and-squeak." Large close-up views of the two mice, with the mouse child sometimes running right off the page, draw viewers into the playful rhyme.
(3)
4-6
Illustrated by
C. F. Payne.
Handsome, expansive portraits accompany Nash's incisive alphabetic verse about nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century baseball stars (first published in SPORT magazine in 1949). Nash's daughter, Linell Nash Smith, contributes thumbnail biographies of each player to round out the proceedings. A witty, informative, and attractively packaged volume. Websites.
32 pp.
| Grand Central
| September, 2010
|
TradeISBN 978-0-446-55702-3$17.99
(4)
K-3
Illustrated by
C. F. Payne.
A song on Martin's 2010 Grammy-winning banjo album "The Crow: New Songs for the Five-String Banjo" receives reinterpretation as a picture book. The goofball verse isn't quite matched by the exaggerated-Rockwellian illustrations, but there's some humor in the story of a kid who rushes to school only to discover it's Saturday. Martin strums and sings on an accompanying CD.
(3)
K-3
Illustrated by
C. F. Payne.
Ethan has watched his family's Thanksgiving Day football game played in ice, mud, and fog. Finally old enough to participate in "Turkey Bowl" himself, Ethan learns that snow has blocked his relatives' arrivals. Undeterred, he rallies the neighborhood kids to compete in "Turkey Bowl Too." Accomplished caricatures of leatherheads in vintage helmets and canvas high-tops add to the nostalgic appeal.
32 pp.
| Simon
| March, 2005
|
TradeISBN 0-689-86273-3$16.95
(4)
K-3
Illustrated by
C. F. Payne.
A (fictional) Brooklyn Dodgers fan looks back to the 1951 baseball season, when the Dodgers lost the pennant to the Giants with one crack of Bobby Thompson's bat. The story aims for immediacy but overshoots the mark with its overly folksy voice ("Yep, in that summer of '51, things sure were diff'rent"). Intentionally grainy full-bleed illustrations reinforce the nostalgic feel.
32 pp.
| Simon/Wiseman
| March, 2005
|
TradeISBN 0-689-87235-6$16.95
(4)
K-3
Illustrated by
C. F. Payne.
A larger-than-life Babe Ruth hovers over the Boston Red Sox at critical moments from his sale to the Yankees after the 1919 season through eighty-six years of World Series drought. Despite some affected dialogue and an awkward tale-within-a-tale format, an entertaining story is made more so through humorous illustrations featuring a wryly grinning Babe triggering Boston's most notorious losses. Bib.
32 pp.
| Simon/Wiseman
| February, 2004
|
TradeISBN 0-689-86329-2$$16.95
(3)
K-3
Illustrated by
C. F. Payne.
In 1931, a seventeen-year-old girl named Jackie Mitchell struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in an exhibition baseball game. Mitchell's extraordinary achievement and the years of effort it took to achieve her level of skill are chronicled capably, if a bit breathlessly, in this lavishly illustrated book, replete with expressive, sculptural renderings of Mitchell and some of baseball's greats.
40 pp.
| Simon
| March, 2003
|
TradeISBN 0-689-85494-3$$16.95
(3)
K-3
Illustrated by
C. F. Payne.
A red-haired, mustachioed, barrel-chested, larger-than-life Casey stars in this new picture book edition of the beloved baseball ballad. Payne's illustrations swell with love for the game--the grass, the equipment, the period uniforms are all carefully rendered--as they capture the raging emotions of the duel between the gangly, terrified young pitcher and the self-confident star.
40 pp.
| Simon
| March, 2002
|
TradeISBN 0-689-82913-2$$17.00
(4)
1-3
Illustrated by
C. F. Payne.
In this fictionalized account, the success of baseball star Shoeless Joe Jackson is attributed to his famous bat, Black Betsy. The "enhancements" to the facts add little to what could have been an equally dramatic tale based solely on what is known about Jackson, a fascinating and controversial sports personality. The illustrations contribute both drama and emotion to the repetitive text.
40 pp.
| Simon
| September, 2002
|
TradeISBN 0-689-83341-5$$17.95
(4)
K-3
Illustrated by
C. F. Payne.
Central Park squirrel Micawber enjoys looking at famous paintings through the skylight of a nearby museum. One day, he follows a young artist home from the museum and, as she sleeps, uses her paint and his bushy tail to create some art of his own. Written in lofty, fluid rhyme and illustrated with unaccountably drab mixed-media images, the story squanders its fine premise by failing to engage the emotions.
(4)
K-3
Illustrated by
C. F. Payne.
The fictionalized account of Harriet Quimby's flight across the English Channel in 1912 is both intriguing and exciting. Payne's illustrations of the first American woman to earn a pilot's license are at their best when showing how small and fragile Quimby's plane was compared to the vast sky and ocean, but the first-person account would be considerably strengthened by source notes or a bibliography.
32 pp.
| March, 1999
|
TradeISBN 0-15-201344-X$$16.00
(3)
1-3
Illustrated by
C. F. Payne.
Bee, an orphan raising eight siblings in the West in 1893, longs to engineer the trains on which she loads freight, and one day her chance arrives. Caricatures in the illustrations effectively complement this well-told narrative. The author's note has an accompanying photograph of women railroad workers in California who inspired the story.