My Dad's Baseball

Cohen, Ron

ISBN 10: 0688123910 ISBN 13: 9780688123918

Publisher: Lothrop Lee & Shepard, 1994

Synopsis

An illustrated tale full of humor and delight, capturing the experience of a boy's first baseball game, tells how the discovery of an old baseball in Grandma's attic leads a father to recount the story of his own first professional baseball game.

About this title

From Booklist

Ages 6-9. It's become a kind of subgenre--baby boomers writing or illustrating picture books about being young baseball fans in the fifties, usually in New York. The audience is ostensibly the young fans of today, but, in fact, it's other boomers for whom names like Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, and Willie Mays will never lose their romance. You can almost hear the boomers' kids saying, "Oh, Dad, do we have to read that book about old-time baseball again?"

Every now and then, though, one of these nostalgic trips to Yankee Stadium or Ebbets Field turns out to be something more than boomer self-indulgence. First-time children's book author Cohen, a successful artist, avoids the pitfalls of the subgenre by remembering the importance of a story--unadulterated nostalgia isn't enough for an audience that missed the fifties by four decades. It's a simple story, to be sure: rummaging in the attic, Dad finds his old baseball autographed by Yogi Berra and tells his son the story of how he got it--the trip to Yankee Stadium for his first game, the home run that landed in his frightened hands, the meeting with Yogi, the irony of being a Milwaukee Braves fan living in enemy territory. Fortunately, the message, about sticking up for what you believe, is treated gently, the way a fleet outfielder sneaks up on a fly ball and then gathers it in with the softest of hands. Cohen's art is subtle, too, soft-focus paintings dominated by greens and browns (against which Dad's red-and-blue Braves hat stands out all the more), evoking both the hazy romance of memory and the homey comfort of a ballpark. This one's a keeper, for both boomers and their kids. Bill Ott

From Publishers Weekly

The appeal of both '50s nostalgia and baseball will make Cohen's first children's book a hit with Little Leaguers as well as their parents. After a yellowed baseball rolls out of a box in his mother's attic, a man tells his seven-year-old son exactly where it came from. "Some days stay in your mind forever, Max. June 4, 1955, is one of them," he explains. On that day, it develops, the boy's father went with his father and brother to Yankee Stadium to see his very first baseball game. An extended flashback presents the father as a youngster (a diehard Milwaukee Braves fan nonetheless thrilled to watch the likes of Mickey Mantle) attending a game between the Yanks and the Detroit Tigers. The big moment arrives when the boy grabs a ball that Yogi Berra has hit into the stands; when he has it autographed the next day, his Braves cap falls out of his pocket, but Berra lets him know that his allegiance to that team is okay ("You should always be who you are"). When the story returns to the present, the father gives the ball to his delighted son. There are no surprises or unexpected twists, just a thoroughly warm tale, simply told. Effectively grainy pastels ably depict the period and convey the timeless allure of baseball. Ages 5-up.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Lothrop Lee & Shepard
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0688123910
• ISBN 13: 9780688123918
• Binding: Library Binding
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 1