The mighty Casey is getting what any failed sports hero most desires: a second chance. He's got to prove himself after his last, disastrous game. All eyes are on Casey as he steps up to the plate. Will he finally bring joy to Mudville? It's a hilarious sequel to Ernest Lawrence Thayer's famous poem "Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of the Republic."

Caldecott Honor Book : 2001.

A narrative poem about a celebrated baseball player who strikes out at the crucial moment of a game.

MUDVILLE—what a sad state it was in. Casey, the town's great baseball hero, had swung beautifully and mightily at the final pitch, only to have the ball disappear into the soft folds of the waiting catcher's mitt. Game over! The agony of defeat cuts so deep. In his immortal poem, "Casey at the Bat," Ernest Thayer pulled the proverbial rug out from beneath our feet. Just when it seemed certain Casey would win it all, all is lost. But Thayer once said, “hope springs eternal within the human breast.” Perhaps there can be another day, perhaps there can be another game, and perhaps there may be another chance for Casey. In 1906 Grantland Rice penned a sequel to "Casey at the Bat" entitled "Casey's Revenge." Rice was a famous sportswriter in the first half of the 20th century and a great fan of baseball. In this edition of "Casey's Revenge," Jim Hull once again entertains us with the same stunning detail and wild perspective baseball fans across the nation enjoyed as they looked through his drawings for Dover Publication's illustrated book, Casey at the Bat. As Casey digs in at the plate, you'll see a curve ball that really curves, what a pitcher looks like from behind Casey's front teeth, and a glimpse of the stands filled with ten thousand fans! Hang onto your hat—it's quite an adventure!

After receiving a call from the newly appointed chief of the New Mexico State Police, ex-Santa Fe chief of detectives Kevin Kerney is thrown into an investigation of a small-town cop-killing no one has been able to solve. His only lead: a homeless schizophrenic's ramblings about rape and an uncharted place called Serpent Gate. Meanwhile, back in Santa Fe, priceless art is stolen from the governor's offices and a beautiful young blonde is murdered in a millionaire's mansion. Kerney follows a trail of clues to Mexico, where he faces off against an old nemesis with powerful government connections. Unwilling to back down, Kerney must use all of his tenacity, raw courage, and knowledge of the criminal mind in a bloody showdown that may cost him his life.

Ernest Thayer's "Casey at the Bat" was first published in the San Francisco Daily Examiner on June 3, 1888. Its popularity owed much to the universality of its subject; every city seemed to have a "Casey" on its team. Thayer, a Harvard graduate, said little about the real Casey, though he did leave a few clues. "The verses owe their existence," he wrote in 1930, "to my enthusiasm for college baseball...and to my association with Will Hearst." Thayer's background is examined here as the basis for determining the origins of the colorfast cast of characters behind his "Ballad of the Republic"--men who may have been "Casey," "Flynn," "Cooney" and other members of the Mudville Nine.

Of all of Longfellow's beloved poems (and there are many) none is so personal, so sunny, or so touching as this affectionate love letter to his three daughters, "grave Alice, and laughing Allegra, and Edith with the golden hair." Longfellow's happiest hours were spent writing on a cluttered desk by the south window of his beloved Craigie House, an imposing mansion still preserved on Cambridge's famous Brattle Street. It was here that most of the action takes place (except for his literary reference, and brief excursion, to the "Mouse-Tower on the Rhine"), here that his daughters come creeping down the stairs to beard the gentle, genial poet in his lair. Lang's luminous illustrations perfectly capture the happy atmosphere of that house, the author's affections for his daughters, and the painterly quality of his verse. This book for young readers presents one of the sweetest poems in the English language, her newly illustrated, beautifully presented, and now available to a new generation of readers.