You Never Heard of Casey Stengel?! Illustrated by Barry Blitt Random House (Schwartz & Wade), 2016
Junior Library Guild Selection
THREE STARRED REVIEWS…!
*“Winter uses the same playfully irreverent narration he brought to his books about Sandy Koufax and Willie Mays to this highly entertaining introduction to Charles Dillon Stengel.” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) Read the review
*“The second companion book to Winter’s You Never Heard of Sandy Koufax?! (2009) is as smart and quirky as Casey Stengel himself…. Reading Winter’s amusing and informative text is like listening to your favorite grandfather talk about baseball’s glory days, assuming that Grandpa has a phenomenal memory, a dry sense of humor, and the storytelling skills of Shaharazad.” (Booklist, starred review) Read the review
*“This engaging title will have kids sprinting toward sports biographies to learn more about the many legendary players Stengel played ball with or managed.” (School Library Journal, starred review) Read the review
“Casey Stengel is an inspired choice for this third of Winter’s ‘You Never Heard of …’ biographies of baseball greats, each illustrated by a different artist. Blitt and Winter have teamed up before on picture books about the Founding Fathers, and here their sensibilities once more mesh brilliantly.” (The New York Times Book Review) Read the review
“The faded watercolors and scratchy lines of Barry Blitt’s illustrations give a feeling of historical distance to this entertaining account of Stengel’s career.” (The Wall Street Journal)
“A charming, endearing introduction to a baseball icon.” (Kirkus Reviews) Read the review
“If the answer to the title question is ‘No, I haven’t’ or ‘Wasn’t he some Yankee?’ then you’d better read on. Winter unleashes his customary rollicking take, this time on the kid whose brief aspirations to dentistry were dashed—a lefty in a right-handed dental world—and who turned instead to baseball.” (Bulletin for the Center of Children’s Books)
