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CM . . .
. Volume XVIII Number 41. . . .June 22, 2012
Recommended. Dave Jenkinson, CM’s editor, lives in Winnipeg, MB.
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As photographer Ian Crysler did with his first book, The Big City/Big Country Counting Book, in My First Hockey Book, he provides two “treatments” to the same subject. When most of us hear the word hockey, we immediately think of ice rinks and skating, and the cover photo of My First Hockey Book, which shows a young child in full hockey gear taking a swipe at a puck on the ice, certainly reinforces that understanding of the word. However, when the warmer weather of spring, summer and fall makes playing ice hockey on outdoor rinks impossible, there is still “street” hockey available to children, and it is this form of hockey that Crysler treats in the last portion of My First Hockey Book.
My First Hockey Book is definitely not a teaching book about the technical aspects of the sport of hockey. Instead, the content of Crysler’s full colour photographs, which occupy some two-thirds of each of the book’s 13 two-page spreads, reveals the shared joy of being involved in both forms of hockey, whether as a spectator or as a player in a pick-up game or as a member of an organized team. As would be expected in a board book, the text accompanying each photo is quite brief and, with one exception, consists of a single short sentence. Crysler’s photos show both boys and girls playing hockey and capture Canada’s racial diversity. My sole criticism of My First Hockey Book is that the photos related to street hockey are less dynamic than those showing the on-ice version of the game.