Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... Park Grove Library (Cottage Grove) | EASY MYE | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury) | EASY MYE | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
One day at the basketball court, two kids, a familiar challenge--H.O.R.S.E.? But this isn't your grandmother's game of hoops. Not when a layup from the other side of the court, standing on one foot, with your eyes closed is just the warm-up.Around the neighborhood, around the world, off Saturn's rings . . . the pair goes back and forth. The game is as much about skill as it is about imagination. A slam dunk from award-winning author and illustrator Christopher Myers, H.O.R.S.E. is a celebration of the sport of basketball, the art of trash-talking, and the idea that what's possible is bounded only by what you can dream.
Author Notes
Like the ballplayers in this book, Christopher Myers defies gravity every chance he can get. Their imagination took them into outer space; his has taken him from Harlem during its Renaissance in Harlem: A Poem , written by Walter Dean Myers, to vibrant city streets in Black Cat , from the bounds of Earth with Wing and Fly! and into a fiercely fought basketball game in Jabberwocky , by Lewis Carroll.
For these flights of imagination, Christopher has received many awards and honors, including a Caldecott Honor, three Coretta Scott King Honors, three Boston Globe-Horn Book Honors, and a New York Times Best Illustrated award.
When he isn't working, Christopher plays touch football with a bunch of other artists in Brooklyn, New York.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
This wonderfully inventive, mordant duel of words offers both an advanced discussion of a particular sport (basketball) and flights of big-talking fancy. The setting is urban; Myers (Looking Like Me) creates collages that combine painting, lots of blank space, and photo images of city buildings. A pair of gangly and competitive boys co-star. "Hey," says one, "want to play a game of horse?" setting the stage for a war of words in which the boys propose ever more improbable shots, taking the one-upmanship, swagger, and style inherent to the game to delirious extremes. "I will stand on one tiny tiptoe, balance myself on the topmost corner of the 437-story building, and shoot a perfect layup, with my left... foot," says one boy. "Now you tell me," protests the other in mock dismay. "What?" "That we could leave the court." Although the book lands softly after the last crazy idea ("from there, the ball will ricochet through the vacuum of space"), the energetic dialogue and gravity-defying artwork more than compensate. An excellent readaloud for kids who scorn fluffy-bunny books and want to play like the big kids. Ages 5-up. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
When two boys with big imaginations and lots of bravado meet on the basketball court and agree to play a game of H.O.R.S.E. (where players take turns making the same trick shots), the game quickly gets out of hand -- literally, as it turns into wordplay. The boys alternate describing the wildly impossible shots they'll take -- from the tops of buildings, after circumnavigating the globe, and from outer space. Each imagined shot builds on the last, upping the ante in what becomes a clever verbal version of H.O.R.S.E. Myers's graceful illustrations employ his signature combination of gouache painting and cut-paper collages using photographs as backgrounds, but there is more painting than collage here, and consequently, more space for the imagination to take flight. We see the bragging twosome, face to face, working up descriptions of their shots, and then we are treated to dynamic double-page spreads of what each shot would look like. Large, bold typography, printed in brown for the dialogue of one boy and dark blue for the other, twists and curls around the page, tracing the movement of the ball -- or the movement the ball would make if the two boys ever stopped talking and started playing. This crowd-pleasing picture book will appeal to young children who will enjoy the whimsy, and to older readers who will appreciate the escalating wordplay in the boys' challenges to each other. kathleen t. horning (c) Copyright 2013. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Two kids on a city court decide to play a game of H.O.R.S.E. It starts off with some trash talk, which is followed by some impressive b-ball. But this is no ordinary game, because one of the players decides to take it to another level by heading out to a faraway building, climbing to the roof, calculating the wind speed and direction, and then standing on tiptoe to shoot with a left foot. Pretty soon the players are jumping over the ocean and even into outer space! Myers does lots of clever things with his elongated shapes. One player, with hair pulled back by a headband, could be either a boy or a girl, while on a starry spread, Neil deGrasse Tyson contemplates an article asking the question, What is this new basketball-shaped comet? A deceptively simple game and a clever concept, handsomely illustrated and full of fun.--Cooper, Ilene Copyright 2015 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 3-6-Two friends on an urban basketball court begin a game of H.O.R.S.E. For the uninitiated, Myers does a fine job describing how to play the game, which is similar to Ghost: one player shoots any kind of shot (layup, jumper, etc.) and the other player has to duplicate it. If the second player fails to make the shot, he gets one letter and the game continues until someone loses five times and spells the word H.O.R.S.E. It sounds simple enough, until these two players get creative, such as balancing on the top of a 437-story building and shooting a perfect layup with the left foot. As the friends raise the stakes and the braggadocio rises to an inventive pitch, readers will appreciate the grand humor. White or plain background space emphasizes the dramatic shots that are dreamed up. In addition, the text waves up and beyond the skyline just as the ball can soar. This book will encourage all readers to grab a close friend and get out to play a game, matching their athleticism to their imaginations.-Blair Christolon, Prince William Public Library System, Manassas, VA (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Two teens on a city basketball court start a game of matching each other's shots. Miss five tries and you are out! The first to spell out H.O.R.S.E. loses, so these two literally shoot for the stars. Easy shots are baby stuff for them. Their conversation goes back and forth as the hoopsters, a guy and a gal, leave the physical confines of the court and let their imaginations take flight. He takes a mighty jump for his "Magellan shot," leaving New York and going "clear around the world." She aims an "outer-space resistant" ball with a "kind of bounce shot" that hits Saturn, mystifies astrophysicist Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson, returns to Earth and slips cleanly through the hoop. "Not bad at all," responds the guy. Myers has great fun with his gravity-defying trash talk and spirited game of one-upmanship. His ballplayers are beautiful, elongated figures painted in brightly textured yellow, blue and brown pastels. Photographic collages of New York City buildings adorn the pages. In his author's note, Myers states that the shots are all fact-based. Who's to argue? An exciting bragging-rights adventure on the basketball court, around and beyond planet Earth and back again. (author's note) (Picture book. 6-10)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
