Ballpark

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)