Reese’s Review of Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of the Republic Sung in the Year 1888

Caldecott Honor Book

First, I love baseball.  Second, I am fascinated with books that can pique my curiosity beyond the text.  Casey at the Bat is just such a book. Though I long have been familiar with Ernest Lawrence Thayer’s Casey at the Bat ode, Christopher Bing’s use of pen and ink drawings along with the scrapbook type style of the book kept me thoroughly enthralled.  I spent as much time marveling at the hidden gems within each scrapbook style page as I did on the poem.  Bing doesn’t simply incorporate materials representative of the time period, he furthers the context of the poem through his careful layering of related texts and illustrations on each page.  Each and every time I open the book, I find something  missed previously. In my own middle school classroom, students are intrigued with the illustrator’s reasons for choosing to illustrate in this way; it allows us the opportunity to discuss the importance of presentation to effectively getting a message across to an audience as well as the vast choices available.

Thayer, E.L. & Bing, C. (2000). Ernest Lawrence Thayer’s Casey at the bat: a ballad of the republic sung in the year 1888. New York: Scholastic.