Ron Mazellan

NCLA Review: The Dungys use their family as the basis for this fictitious story. A new family moves to their neighborhood, and one of the daughters, Hannah, uses a wheelchair. Slowly, a friendship grows between one of the Dungy daughters, Jade, and Hannah. A problem arises when Jade wants to have her birthday party at a water park, but that will mean Hannah cannot participate like the other children. How the problem is handled leads to a beautifully illustrated story of understanding and show more reaching out to others. This book would be a wonderful lead-in discussion with children; suggestions for resolving the problem could be explored before reading the entire story. For ages 4-7. Rating: 4 —KHB show less

I enjoyed reading this book. This biography included many overall facts about Cal Ripken Jr’s baseball career, but the major focus of the book was his 1988 season with the Baltimore Orioles. I liked the selection of this particular season: the one in which the Orioles lost the first 21 games straight. When writing about an athlete as celebrated and talented as Cal Ripken Jr. it would be easy to simply write positives, and the decision to focus on this struggle instead made the story more show more meaningful to read. The meaningfulness of the text was highlighted on the last page with the words: “winning is easy on a person, but you learn more from losing. you learn to keep trying, each day a little harder than the day before”.
The depicted time period highlights a sore period of Cal Ripken Jr.’s career. The book, however, includes information regarding Ripken’s positives and strengths, though, so that readers do not walk away with a skewed and inaccurate image of Ripken. The first page of the book includes a large header that reads “Iron Man Cal” and details Ripken’s feat of playing in 2,632 straight games in his career, his World Series wins, as well as his 1983 title of Most Valuable Player of the American League. The author’s decision to preface this story of loss and struggle with Ripken’s many achievements creates a nice balance for readers.
The message of the story is: losing teaches you a lot. show less

Tony and Lauren Dungy did a great job with this book! The story begins with siblings, Jordan, Justin, and Jade, playing freeze tag in their front yard when they notice a moving van pull into a house nearby. The children fill up with excitement and run inside to tell their mother about their new neighbors. Jade gets extra excited and hopeful that she will finally have a girl around to be friends with. The family bakes cookies and brings them to the new neighbors. This is when Jade realizes show more that her new friend that she had been hoping for, Hannah, is in a wheelchair. Jade then worries that Hannah will not be able to participate in activities that her and her other friends do and she becomes hesitant to become friends with her. Jade’s parents give her some great advice, and basically from then on they are best friends! Tony and Lauren Dungy did a great job getting their point across that people should love and be accepting of everybody no matter what they look like! Ron Mazellan did an amazing job with the illustrations! I love the detail and how everything just flows together really well! This book is great and can potentially encourage readers to be more friendly and accepting of others. show less

Cal Ripken, Jr The Longest Season, is a great sports book that goes through the struggle of losing that Cal Ripken deals with. This book was a great read and I liked it for three reasons. First, I liked how the book was a biography and picture book at the same time. This was portrayed through the illustrations, as they varied throughout the book. Within the book there were a number of photographs, which enhanced the story. These pictures captured Cal Ripken’s life, which included baby and show more childhood pictures, family pictures, and pictures of his career as a baseball player. Along with these pictures there were a number of illustrations that were drawn and that were appropriate to the mood of the story to show how Cal was feeling. Secondly, I liked the writing technique that was used throughout this book. Usually, books that talk about an influential person can get boring. Though, this books writing style was engaging, as Cal Ripken Jr. incorporated stories throughout his childhood that children can relate to. Finally, I loved the lessons that were incorporated into this book. Children learn that losing streaks happen and that it’s important to remain positive throughout them. Cal brings the positive out when something negative happens. For example, “Yet the 0-21 losing streak would be the one thing I wouldn’t mind forgetting, were it not for what I learned. Winning is easy on a person, but you learn more from losing.” Overall, the “big idea” of this book is that losing teaches you more. You learn how to be a better teammate, and how much you need one another to play well as a team. You even learn how to win. show less