Let's Play Basketball (Super Sturdy Picture Books Series) by Charles R. Smith, Terry Widener (Illustrator)

Product Details

Synopsis

An out-of-this-world story about a boy and his amazing basketball that will have little listeners begging to play, too.


We could bounce to the park,
Dribble to a funky beat.
Spin with me. Dance with me on concrete!

When a bored basketball pleads with a little boy to take it out to play,
is there any limit to the feats they can perform?

Annotation

A basketball asks to be taken outside to play.

Publishers Weekly

Let's Play Basketball! by Charles R. Smith Jr., illus. by Terry Widener, stars a talking basketball that makes a poetic plea to its young owner for some game time. Smith's text bounces and soars like the ball narrator: "I'll turn and skip and leap and rise/ as I bounce off the sun and swish through clouds so high." Widener's acrylics create a cheery, full-bleed cartoon backdrop for the ballin' boy. (Aug.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Biography

Charles R. Smith Jr. says that while growing up, he spent many hours reading anything he could get his hands on. "Reading books filled with stories and poems inspired me to write my own," he says. Charles R. Smith Jr. is the author of the rap-inspired HOOP QUEENS and HOOP KINGS and the author-illustrator of the American Library Association Notable Book RIMSHOTS: BASKETBALL PIX, ROLLS, AND RHYTHMS, among other titles.

Terry Widener spent many years as a graphic designer and another fourteen years as a commercial artist before illustrating his first children's book. Since then he has illustrated many picture books, including THE BABIE AND I and LOU GEHRIG: THE LUCKIEST MAN.