The Fox Under First Base (Charles Scribner's Sons Books for Young Readers)

A baseball-stealing fox makes reparation and is duly rewarded

Kindergarten-Grade 3 --A potentially popular sports story that ultimately goes down swinging. It is overly long, convoluted, and lacking in logic. Latimer goes to great lengths to set the scene and introduce his characters by name, and then proceeds to refer to them throughout as Bear, Skunk, etc. It seems that a gray fox has a fondness for baseballs, having swiped 100 of them from his stategically placed den beneath the ballpark's first-base bag. Bear knows nothing about the sport or the importance of bases and balls until Porcupine, who is investigating the case, explains the game in a nutshell: the object is "first to be safe--and then to come home." Fox comes clean and returns all of the balls--at once. The animals, now fast friends and fans, get together and listen to old World Series yarns. McCue's wonderfully furry watercolor creatures, intermingled with striking silhouttes, are appealing but lack distinctive personalities. This is a strange meander that fails to engage readers in the mystery, the baseball lore, or the animals' adventures. That's three strikes.
-Luann Toth, School Library Journal
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.