Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of the Republic Sung in the Year 1888

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.)