(3) K-3 Smart about History series. Illustrated by Tracy Mitchell. This overview of the Negro baseball leagues provides historical background, introduces major players such as Rube Foster and Satchel Paige, and touches on the integration of the major leagues in the 1940s. The presentation--a fictional school assignment by a student, complete with childlike drawings mixed in with photos--is a bit contrived, but the information is sound and the lively tone has kid appeal.

Reviewer: Peter D. Sieruta

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Tracy Mitchell. From eighty to forty to twenty and down to one, a group taking part in a cross-country race is continually divided in half by various accidents and natural disasters. The book's math pattern is fudged at the end in order to provide one winner, but the rhyming text is bouncy, and the colorful folk-art paintings with snazzy racing-checker graphics show grannies, clowns, cowpokes, pirates, and convicts, among others, as participants.

Reviewer: Anita L. Burkam