Game Action: Swing by Rufus Butler Seder

CAN YOU SWING A BASEBALL BAT?
WHOOM! WHOOSH! WHACK!

CAN YOU KICK A SOCCER BALL?
FROOM! BOOM! SMACK!

In another of his celebrations of movement, Rufus Butler Seder's best-seller, Swing! (Workman, 2009) turns from animals in motion to the joy and beauty of human movement.

CAN YOU CARTWHEEL THROUGH THE AIR?
HOP! LOOP! WHIRL!

CAN YOU SPIN AROUND ON ICE?
SLIDE! GLIDE! TWIRL!

Children of elementary age can be seen in all those ebullient activities kids love, swimming the breast stroke like a dolphin, getting off a jump shot, and just running a race for the sheer joy of it. This scanimation book, like its predecessors, Gallop!: A Scanimation Picture Book (Scanimation Books) and Waddle!: A Scanimation Picture Book (Scanimation Picture Books), has been described over and over as "jawdropping" and must be seen in action to be appreciated. For example, in the picture of a child hitting a baseball, we see the action from setting the stance, through the backswing and follow-through, until the baseball, stitches and all, caroms toward us and itself fills the "screen." Each stage can be "frozen" by holding the page immobile and reversed by turning the page back toward the front of the book. While not marketed as an "easy-to-read" book, the text is brief, presented in large, colorful type, and well within the reach of most beginning readers.

Swing! is a book which will fascinate kids and prompt them to read aloud to each other as they share the action. As an added bonus, after kids are told to "give themselves a great big cheer" (accompanied by a scanimation of a leaping pom-pom-waving cheerleader), the author offers a final healthy suggestion:

NOW LET'S GO OUTSIDE AND PLAY!