Sports Illustrated Kids Rookie Books

For all of the mini-athletes out there (or children of sports-loving parents), we’ve got some new non-fiction books that are part of the Sports Illustrated Kids Rookie Books series by Mark Weakland. And, I must say, they’re pretty fun. The first one, Football ABC, goes through all of the letters of the alphabet using football terms. Not only does each letter represent a football word—action, ball, coin toss, and so on—but with each word comes a description that is really helpful in learning about the sport and building vocabulary. For instance, the F page says: “F is for fumble. Uh-oh! When a player drops the ball, it’s a fumble.”

Hockey Counting is set up similarly. In this one, it follows the numbers 1 through 12 and provides hockey lessons and photograph descriptions on each page. For number 6, it says: “Each hockey team is allowed six players on the ice at a time. Five skaters and one goalie wait patiently for the game to begin.”

And if all that wasn’t enough to sell you on these books, there’s more; they both include a glossary, an index, a list of other suggested titles about football and hockey, and information about a website that has links to other sites (researched by the SI staff) related to the books. Not too shabby, eh? And apparently if you spend too much time with that hockey book, you start speaking like a Canadian… J

Who's Your Daddy?

If you're a little boy in one of these two picture books, your daddy is a pretty good sport. 

In Mitchell's License the title character uses his dad as a racecar when it's time for bed.  It takes some practice to get the hang of driving around a grown up, including one fender bender (Dad's nose against a wall), and some practice pulling on his ear to go in reverse.  Tony Fucile's illustrations perfectly capture this pajama-clad father and son duo and show that even the most basic rituals can be turned into a sporting event.

Daddy Adventure Day is told from the perspective of an energetic brown-haired boy who manages to rouse his sleepy father at 4:45am for an adventure day.  They attend the boy's first baseball game and the day is full of surprises for both of them.  The boy's humorous reminders that there are no cell phone calls to work and no newspaper reading on Daddy Adventure Day keep dad in check while the father's patience with his son's ballpark snack spills help give the adventure a realistic and comforting feel.

Share these with the sports-loving fathers and sons in your life...or the ones who are just good sports.