Snowy Sports: Ready, Set, Play! Per-Henrik Gürth. Written by Yvette Ghione. Toronto, ON: Kid Can Press, 2009. 24 pp., hardcover, $14.95. ISBN 978-1-55337-367-4. Preschool-grade 1 / Ages 3-6. Review by Renée Englot. ***½ /4

excerpt:

Skeleton

Rocket along the curve - zoom!

Luge

Slip and slide down the track.

Downhill skiing

Zippity-zip down the snowy hill.

Snowy Sports is a great introduction to winter sporting activities. It would be perfect reading in preparation for the upcoming Winter Olympics and Paralympics. A variety of winter sports are presented on single pages or two-page spreads. A page title identifies the feature sport. A single sentence gives an overview of the sport. Each page or spread also includes a box with a picture of a piece of winter gear from long johns to ski poles. Book-ending the studies of winter sports are scenes of friends. The book opens with moose, bears, beavers, racoons, deer, and big horn sheep eating breakfast and getting dressed to go outside. The ending displays the crew around the fire with mugs of hot chocolate.

     A nice nod, Gürth includes depictions of differently abled critters in his illustrations. The opening scene shows a bear in a wheel chair. The same bear curls with a rink of non-wheel chair athletes and joins the cross country skiers on specially adapted equipment. In addition, one of the feature sports is the paralympic sport of sledge hockey. And while some scenes seem to show professional athletes - the ski jumper soars above a crowd waving flags - others are clearly just friends engaged in recreation - the hockey scene is pond hockey.

      Gürth's artwork will be familiar to many. His illustrations are consistent with the style of his Canada in Colours and his illustrations for Kim Bellefontaine's Canada 1 2 3 and Canada ABC. The artwork, created using Adobe Illustrator, is bright and bold. There's lots of action and suggested motion. The pictures give a good sense of what the sports entail. The end papers are blue with a blizzard of snow dots, adding to the well packaged, thematic unity.

      The author of the book is actually Yvette Ghione, but she is only acknowledged on the copyright page.

Recommended.

Renée Englot is a former junior high school teacher now working as a professional storyteller in school settings. She holds a Master of Arts in Children's Literature.

To comment on this title or this review, send mail to cm@umanitoba.ca.

Copyright © the Manitoba Library Association. Reproduction for personal use is permitted only if this copyright notice is maintained. Any other reproduction is prohibited without permission.

Published by The Manitoba Library Association ISSN 1201-9364

Hosted by the University of Manitoba.

 

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