CCA News

This Is the Game

Posted on Monday, February 6, 2012, by Lindsey Westbrook

This Is the Game
HarperCollins, 2011
Hardcover, 32 pages, $16.99

In this picture-book celebration of baseball, aspects of the game are described in verse and illustrated with bold double-page spreads by Illustration faculty member Owen Smith). His illustrations, set in the 1920s and 1930s, feature images of American streets and stadiums of the time and capture the excitement of the sport. Many scenes show heroic figures in the foreground, posed against a misty backdrop of a crowded ballpark. Other pictures show people gathered around a radio, listening to a game, as well as kids playing stickball on crowded urban streets.