The Basket Ball

PreS-Gr 2—Lulu's passion is shooting hoops. She tears up the court, but the boys won't allow her on their team. Undeterred, Lulu invites sporty girls from around the world to attend a Basket Ball. Plecas's affable ink, watercolor, and gouache illustrations feature a multicultural team of sports enthusiasts who arrive in a basketball-shaped carriage wearing sequined jerseys, "high-top heels," and "hair wrapped in nothing but net." Many basketball phrases are woven into the rhyming text, with sometimes clunky results: "'Girls cannot play,' the guard would say,/Asserting his offensive …. Lulu did not quibble./She offered up a hanky for the captain's double dribble." The empowerment theme has appeal, but it is restricted by the extensive wordplay.—Linda Ludke, London Public Library, Ontario, Canada