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H.O.R.S.E: A Game of Basketball and Imagination

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H.O.R.S.E.:  A Game of Basketball and Imagination
by Christopher Myers
Egmont, 2012.  Unpaged.  Picture book.

    Anyone who has ever played HORSE, which should be anyone who has ever laid a hand on a basketball, will rejoice in the hyperbolic one-upmanship of the two young men who trade tales of the shots they are going to make, without ever launching the ball towards the hoop.  "Okay, layup with my eyes closed" is met with derision:  too easy--we'll be here all day. So how about a half-court shot, back to the hoop, eyes closed, standing on one foot, over the left shoulder.  By the time this imaginary game of HORSE concludes, the ball has spun three times around the rings of Saturn in "kind of a bounce shot" and swished, nothing but net. Myers captures playground, backyard, hoop on the garage basketball like no one else with his trademark full-of-fun, brightly colored stretchy figures. Don't miss the author's splendid end note on the last page of the book.
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