Take Me Out to the Ballgame by Jack Norworth

Take Me Out to the Ballgame by Jack Norworth, illustrated by Macky Pamintaun

Rating: 5 stars

A simple book, about a simple concept: good ol' baseball.  Add on the timeless tale of a young boy falling madly in love with the game, and you've got yourself a great song with fantastic illustrations.

The classic, oh-so-American song (full story of it is in the back of this book and in this fantastic other children's book, Players in Pigtails) provides the words; Macky Pamintaun provides the illustrations of an incredibly enthusiastic, super excited, ohmygodIcan'tbelieveitIamata-baseballgameforrealforrealforreal young boy going to a ballgame.

That's it, that's all.  Simple, but you've GOT to have this book if you've got a baseball-crazed guy around.

Ben, 12 hours before practice.

And I happen to have one such guy around.  His name is Ben.

The young boy in the book could easily be Ben who, as I type, is sleeping in his baseball cap after his first T-ball practice.  I don't know if the word "enthusiastic" accurately describes how crazy happy and crazy into this game he is.  We watched him throw himself into the game, running full throttle after a ball, listening with every fiber of his little body at his coach (my good friend), and paying more attention to the ground ball approaching his glove than he ever has paid attention to me.

In all, a great, great day.  A Big Day!  And where are we going on Sunday?  To a ball game.  A REAL one!  See that cover up there?  That'll be Ben, more excited than he was on Christmas morning...