Starred Review for Publishers Weekly (Thu Apr 28 00:00:00 CDT 2022)

Debut children's book illustrator Bing hits a home run with this handsome faux-scrapbook treatment of Thayer's immortal poem. The original verses about baseball star Casey and the ill-fated Mudville nine appeared in the San Francisco Examiner on June 3, 1888, and Bing captures the spirit of the age with pen-and-ink illustrations that look like carefully preserved newspaper clippings, complete with slightly torn and yellowed edges. He uses cross-hatching and careful shading to create the pages of The Mudville Sunday Monitor, which keenly resemble the newspaper engravings of the day. Columns of type (in historically accurate printers' fonts, as an afterword points out) run beneath each illustration to bolster the conceit. Bing also scatters other """"scrapbook"""" items throughout, from game tickets (a bargain at 20 cents) to old-fashioned baseball cards and stereopticon imagesDmany of them carefully keyed to the text. Full-color currency, for instance, accompanies """"They thought if only Casey could but get a whack at thatD/ We'd put up even money now with Casey at the bat,"""" while an ad for Brown's Bronchial Troches appears with the couplet """"Then from 5,000 throats and more there rose a lusty yell;/ It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell."""" Endpapers reveal more items to delight baseball fans and history buffs, from Thayer's newspaper obituary to a fake bookplate wreathed with baseball motifs. Though Casey and the Mudville nine strike out in the end, this exceptionally clever picture book is definitely a winner. All ages. (Nov.)

ALA Booklist

First-time children's book illustrator Bing's take on Casey at the Bat represents, above all, a stunning example of contemporary bookmaking in which the most sophisticated electronic techniques have been used to re-create the past. The text is presented as a newly discovered, 100-year-old scrapbook into which newspaper articles, including Thayer's poem and other memorabilia, have been pasted, recording not only the events of the day--Casey's ninth-inning strikeout and the Mudville nine's four-to-two defeat--but also a broader view of the baseball world in 1888. The poem is illustrated in two-page spreads in which Bing's scratchboard drawings effectively capture the look of engravings used in newspapers of the period. Imposed over the drawings are fictional clippings that amplify issues suggested in the text (on the spread where Jimmy Blake tears the cover off the ball, an editorial decries the practice of using only one ball throughout a game). Elsewhere, the illustrations depict a black player, and the clipping concerns the soon-to-be-instituted color line. (As with all the fictional clippings, this reference to baseball before the color line is historically accurate.) There is a phenomenal amount of information on baseball history compacted into this fascinating format, and the juxtaposition of memorabilia to text is unfailingly, even exhaustingly, clever (a newspaper ad for bronchial troches to cure hoarseness appears alongside the lines Then from 5,000 throats and more there rose a lusty yell). As with so many recent tour-de-force picture books, however, questions linger about the audience. For all its brilliance and bravura, this is a far less kid-friendly Casey than Gerald Fitzgerald's 1995 version. Adults, of course, will marvel at the bookmaking and relish the arcane information, but they may meet a fate similar to Casey's when they try to pass on their enthusiasm to their young children.

Horn Book

Setting the poem when it originated, Bing creates a fictional edition of the Mudville Monitor to report Casey's humiliation. Scratchboard drawings re-create gazette etchings, and the yellowed, crumbling pages of this manufactured artifact look authentic. Small collages of advertisements and baseball memorabilia (authentic and fabricated) decorate the pages. Such a mixture of fact and fiction begs for discussion and sharing.

Kirkus Reviews

"The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day. . . ." But the outlook for the possibilities of digitally manipulated design in children's books looks increasingly brilliant as evidenced by this rather amazing version of Thayer's well-loved baseball poem, "Casey at the Bat." In Bing's debut, he has created a delightful oversized scrapbook version of the poem with double-page spreads making it appear to be authentic newspaper illustrations from the Mudville Monitor of June 3, 1888. Bing's old-fashioned line drawings are done in the style of 19th-century engravings, complemented by thick, sepia-toned paper that appears to be faded at the edges. The scrapbook design continues throughout the book, with items relating to the poem (baseball tickets, medals, money, newspaper clippings, and advertisements) creatively interspersed throughout the text pages as though pasted there a century ago. The title page is set as the front page of the paper with an author's note as newspaper column; a mock obituary on the inside back cover gives biographical information on Thayer; and an editor's note set as a torn scrap of newspaper describes the complex computerized processes used to create the book. Teachers who want to introduce the poem to students will find all the information for an entire lesson in this one volume, including the price of a small-town paper in 1888 (two cents). A solid hit. (Poetry. 8+)

School Library Journal Starred Review

Gr 3 Up-Thayer's classic poem of the 19th-century baseball legend has been revived for a new generation in this creatively designed package. From the first look at the cover, produced to resemble a vintage scrapbook, through the interior views of pages from the "Mudville Monitor," Bing has orchestrated every detail to great effect. Each double spread, rendered in ink and brush on scratchboard, is a scene from the poem. The multitude of lines adds energy; the multiple perspectives create interest. Overlaid on this tattered "newsprint" is baseball memorabilia (cards, tickets, medallions, postcards), as well as cleverly fabricated ads or editorials that relate to the moment. The book will be enjoyed by intergenerational partners who can pore over the pages and point things out to one another. It would be a gold mine for teachers seeking inspiration for period projects.-Wendy Lukehart, Dauphin County Library, Harrisburg, PA Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.