Good Sports

Great pics elevate poems for sports lovers.

Author: Jack Prelutsky Illustrator: Chris Raschka Pages: 40 Publisher: Knopf Published Date: 03/13/2007 Genre: Non-Fiction - Poetry HC Price: $16.99 Publisher's Recommended Reading Level: 4-8 Read Aloud: 4 Read Alone: 8

Common Sense Note

Parents need to know that there is nothing offensive about this bouncy, personable collection of poems.

Families can pull out some of the action words by collecting the verbs in the book and using them to describe their own favorite exercise activities. Or they can act them out -- duck, dodge, slip, twist -- how does it feel to do them? Do the poems capture the action of real sports play? Then families can use those verbs to create their own poems, or they can get out art supplies and draw the actions.

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Common Sense Review

Reviewed By: Dawn Friedman

You don't have to love poetry to love this rollicking collection of sports poems. Prelutsky holds the Poetry Foundation's position of Children's Poet Laureate and with good reason. Kids who may think poetry is a pretty stodgy art form best left to their elders get a chance to see all that words can do.

Kids will identify with the athletes in the book. There are star players here who catch the fly ball, and others who are just happy to be out playing -- like the swimmer who swims "like a fish / That's been sick for a spell." These are kids who play for the love of the game and their enthusiasm, caught in Prelutsky's adept rhymes, will inspire the same in readers.

Raschka's watercolor and ink illustrations loop, leap, and fly about with his signature high-energy style. He does a remarkable job of creating vibrancy and action in a static medium and truly it's his pictures that make the book stand out.