“What ball game is this?” asks a childlike cat holding a black-and-white ball and standing in front of a goal net. A turn of the lightweight cardboard page (cut to emphasize the outline of the ball) reveals the answer—“Soccer!”—along with a picture showing the cat scoring a goal, and a boxed, illustrated listing of all the uniform components: “This is my soccer shirt. These are my soccer shorts. These are my soccer shin guards” and so on. The same active young cat goes through the same routine for three other games: basketball, baseball, and football. Lynn Reiser’s simple, engaging introduction to four sports is not only great to share with preschoolers, but great for beginning readers—especially those who are sports enthusiasts—with its short sentences, repetition, and abundance of picture clues. (Ages 3–7)

A kitten, being picked up from preschool by his parent, asks, “What will we play today? Let’s play a ballgame!” This book with sturdy cardstock pages and clever die-cuts is made for active youngsters who long to play grown-up games. Though they are too young to actually play baseball, soccer, basketball or football, they are never too young to pretend. The child is asked to guess each game, using the type of ball and the playing field as clues. Then, as the page turns, a die-cut ball appears to move from one page to the next. The little kitten is shown as a member of a winning team with every piece of that game’s uniform and equipment pictured. This adorable book ends on the realistic note of playing catch.