Saturday, April 28, 2007

Balls!

What book provides information on bingo balls, pangolins, ball pythons, soccer balls, footballs and tennis balls just to name a few? Balls!
It is a compendium of all things to do with balls! What a great find for a PE teacher!
This is a wonderful collection of facts and asides all about balls. There are photos, historical and modern, fun facts, cartoons, famous faces, records and much more. The book is divided into 11 sections including 8 sports and ball basics and more odd balls and finally a for further reading section. The information is presented in a quirky fun kid-friendly way so that it is not a dry collection of facts.

The reader can learn the history of each ball and how it is constructed and why it is made the way it is--for example a basketball has 31, 029 pebbles on its surface! there is something in here for everyone. It can be read from cover to cover or a reader can select their favorite sport.
Bowling, baseball, and billiard balls are conspicuously absent. his is explained briefly on p.69 where Rosen assures us that another volume is coming soon!

Grades 4-7
PE Teachers K-8
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2 comments:

bullarc said...

I will second this one! I shared it with our PE teacher and student PE teacher. They really liked it. Both noticed one small (or perhaps large when you consider height) error on page 8. They said that Wilt Chamberlain’s correct height was actually 7' 1" not 7' 11" which would be taller than the tallest NBA player thus far. Chamberlain's correct height does appear in the volleyball section, however. Another note/suggestion from this duo refers to the last paragraph on page 7. It states that Shawn Bradley is a player of today, but he retired in 2005 at age 35 (probably still playing when the book was being written). They suggested Chow Ming as a better choice, also 7’ 6,” and currently playing. Even with these notes, they both said that they would use the book and wanted to know if it was in our collection. Our student teacher said he loves to be able to include quick facts like the ones shared in this book. Our veteran PE teacher said he especially likes the table at the beginning, organizing the balls by what you do with them. Hopefully it will appeal to kids as well… perhaps those who like digging for fun facts and want to know how things are made.

May 2, 2007 at 11:00 AM
Brucie said...

I will not deny the value of this book in the p.e. curriculum or the high interest level of the subject matter. I do have some concerns, however. On p. 8, along with the error about Chamberlain's height is another error. Michael Jordan is referenced as if he has not yet retired from basketball. What? This makes me wonder about other statistics and statements in the text. I also found it odd that a whole double page spread is dedicated to comparing a soccer ball to other ball shaped items such as a hailstone and a cannon ball. What's the relevance? There's a handball but no baseball? I'm not saying I don't think the book has value. It just doesn't seem like a "best" selection to me. I wonder if some of this text was written some time back and cobbled together to make the book.

May 3, 2007 at 9:18 AM

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