Ballpark: The Story of America's Baseball Fields - Hardcover

Curlee, Lynn

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0689867425 ISBN 13: 9780689867422

Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2005

Synopsis

"If you love baseball, chances are you love one particular ballpark. Boston fans wax poetic about Fenway Park. Cubs fans are adamant that Wrigley Field is the classic ballfield. Busch Stadium is a hit with folks from Missouri, and Yankee fans are passionate about the House That Ruth Built...." Besides passionate fans, there's one other thing all ballparks -- from the Union Grounds in Brooklyn built in 1862 to the Baltimore Oriole's Camden Yards built in 1992 -- have in common: Each has its own vibrant and unique history. In "Ballpark," Sibert Honor Award winner Lynn Curlee explores both the histories and the cultural significances of America's most famous ballparks. Grand in scope and illustrations, and filled with nifty anecdotes about these "green cathedrals," "Ballpark" also explores the changing social climate that accompanied baseball's rise from a minor sport to the national pastime. This is a baseball book like no other.

About this title

Product Description:

Ballpark From Sibert Award honoree Lynn Curlee comes a full-color illustrated exploration of where our national pastime is played. "Curlee's illustrations communicate not just information, but also excitement and sentiment."--"The New York Times Book Review." Full description

Review:

Adding to an impressive and growing body of work about important places, Curlee here celebrates America's "green cathedrals," offering a fine survey of American history through the story of baseball. From early American bat-and-ball games to the present, every era has its story, from the Black Sox scandal after WWI, Babe Ruth and the Roaring Twenties, the Negro Leagues and the Great Depression, and on into the modern era of ballparks shaped like "concrete doughnuts" and the reaction to them in retro ballparks such as Baltimore's Camden Yards. The text is dense but full of fascinating history, and the glorious colors of the acrylic paintings effectively celebrate the ballparks and the players, stiff and formal as the stately cathedrals they inhabit. Double-page spreads featuring Ty Cobb and Jackie Robinson, majestic paintings of Yankee Stadium and Wrigley Field, and a diagram of Fenway Park add to the work's tremendous visual appeal. The volume arrives with the new season, and readers who need encouragement to get out to the ballpark will surely find it here. (bibliography) (Picture book/nonfiction. All ages) (Kirkus Reviews)

About this edition

• Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0689867425
• ISBN 13: 9780689867422
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 48
• Illustrator: Curlee Lynn