On Sports-Non Fiction for Children
Baseball and Soccer How To Play and How to Understand the Games
Apr 1, 2008
How Soccer Works and How Baseball Works by Keltie Thomas
$12.95 Can $10.95 US 64 pages each
Maple Tree Press ISBN 978-1-897349-01-4 (Soccer) and 978-1894379601 (Baseball)
What can be healthier than reading for the mind and active sports for the body? Canadian publisher Maple Tree Press has a pair of new books in their How Sports Works series - How Soccer Works and How Baseball Works. Both are softcover, small books - about 64 pages each - but packed with excellent information not readily available for children to absorb from one place.
Text Rich in Facts
Authored by Keltie Thomas, a former editor of Owl Magazine, ...Baseball and ...Soccer are presented with a droll, witty humor well blended with the author's scientifically curious point-of-view. Age appropriate explanations of concepts like curving kicks and why baseball bats are made of wood give young readers points of interest to share with friends or classmates. Readers take away cool facts. For example, shin bones, because of their unprotected characteristics, require outside padding. Who knew that rolled newspapers were the first shinguards for soccer and hockey players?
Eye Catching Photographs
Real photographs, possibly one of the best ways to present images to children, enhance the text of How Soccer Works and How Baseball Works, keeping young readers glued to the pages. Greg Hall's illustrations enhance the photography and lend an engaging personality to the games. It's gratifying to find girls and boys, and men's and women's sports getting equal time on the pages. One doesn't get the sense that sports should be left to one sex or the other in particular.
The writing, while full of facts and fun, does tend to go off into sentences that feel too long for young readers at times. But subject matter that breezily combines playtime passions with lessons tied into classroom curricula hit the nail smartly on the head. The dragging sentence issue will likely be resolved by children more than willing to seek help over the rough spots so they can finish the books. Pushing the envelope? Maybe. But that's what sports, and learning are all about.
Very young school children can enjoy the books' bright colors and lively discussions with a little help from an adult. Elementary grade kids from around third and fourth grades upward are the perfect audience. It's tough to get kids and books together sometimes. Two of the most popular sports in the world can go a long way toward bridge the gap.
