Home Run, Touchdown, Basket, Goal!: Sports Poems for Little Athletes

by Leo Landry, Leo Landry (Illustrator)

Overview

With sweet and simple rhymes, these poems in Home Run, Touchdown, Basket, Goal! celebrate a wide range of sports. From baseball and basketball, to karate and swimming, there's something for everyone!

I've got my ball
I've got my glove
I'm ready for the game I love

Baseball, basketball, karate, gymnastics, lacrosse, cycling, hockey, soccer, figure skating, tennis, football, and swimming—sports are so much fun to play together. Young and adorable art adds extra appeal to Leo Landry's Home Run, Touchdown, Basket, Goal!, a poetry collection for the very youngest of athletes.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250253330
Publisher:	Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
Publication date:	03/26/2019
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	32
File size:	8 MB
Age Range:	3 - 6 Years

About the Author

Leo Landry has written and illustrated many books for children. In addition to his work as an artist, Leo is a bookseller at Jeff Kinney's bookstore, An Unlikely Story. He lives with his family in Easton, Massachusetts.

To name a few books Leo has written: Space Boy!, Oh, Baby! A Celebration of Babies, Eat Your Peas, Ivy Louise!, Grin & Bear It and The Snow Ghosts.

Editorial Reviews

"This easily read poetry collection represents a broad array of sports and games . . . an inspirational and reasonably realistic representation of the sporting world." —Kirkus Reviews on Home Run, Touchdown, Basket, Goal!: Sports Poems for Little Athletes

From the Publisher

04/01/2019

PreS-K-These first-person rhyming poems are vignettes of childhood athletic experiences. In addition to typical sports like football and basketball, gymnastics, martial arts, and bicycling are included. The simple illustrations include nearly identical children with a variety of skin tones and feature both boys and girls playing co-ed sports. The football poem is paired with a picture of two children in uniform. Long hair flows out of one of the player's helmets which doesn't necessarily indicate a female player, but the jersey on the possible girl is shortened so that the navel is exposed. If a crop-top is intended to point to femininity in this football scenario, this picture is worrisome. Overall, the writing is amateurish and the rhymes are forced. For example, the poem "Tennis, Anyone?" reads, "It bounces once, I take a swing./The ball is high above./You've served another ace again/The score is forty-love!" Although the book features a variety of activities, better options are available for children's sports poems, such as Good Sports: Rhymes about Running, Jumping, Throwing, and More by Jack Prelutsky. VERDICT The simplicity of the verses work against this title.-Elaine Fultz, Madison Jr. Sr. High School, Middletown, OH

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