Getting into Basketball

Children's Literature - John D. Orsborn

For the novice basketball player, nothing helps more than an instructional book on the sport. Most books written about the sport make assumptions that younger players possess a grasp of the basics, and skip to more progressive aspects of the sport. In their book, however, authors Ron Thomas and Joe Herran make no such assumptions. Throughout the text the authors provide young readers unfamiliar with techniques and basic skills a good, basic education about basketball. Sharp illustrations with intermittent photographs enhance the techniques and skills covered. In addition to basketball skills, the court design and role of the officials is adequately covered. The only weak portion in this volume of the "Getting Into...," series is the lack of further resources. For older but reluctant readers or low-level readers, this book will probably be too basic. While the glossary does add to student vocabulary, the book's basic terminology doesn't allow much word building on the part of younger readers. Nevertheless, this is a useful book for a lower-grade elementary library.