Christopher Bing

Casting about for another illustration idea for a children's book, Bing remembered a gift his parents had given him when hew as in high school – Wallace Tripp's newly illustrated version of “Casey at the Bat.” At the time he was most interested in a note in the back of the book stating that the poem had originally appeared in the San Francisco Examiner in 1888. He wondered why no one had ever illustrated the poem as if they were reading it in a newspaper, but the idea seemed so obvious he assumed it had been done. Over time, he would look up different versions of “Casey at the Bat” in various libraries but never did find one that matched his vision. When asked by Franceschelli to come up with another idea, he says that his own version of Casey “sprang to the front of the line and started knocking on the inside of my skull shouting 'Let me out.'” Seven years later, the book was finished and met with instant success. It was named a Blue Ribbon book by the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books and an ALA Notable Children's Book and captured a Caldecott Honor Award, a remarkable achievement for a first book. The intricate illustrations – created in pen and ink on scratchboard and overlaid with baseball memorabilia, newspaper ads, box scores, and vintage photographs – create the sensation of reading clippings in an old scrapbook found in a family attic. With its startling perspectives and historically accurate settings and clothing, the book appeared both innovative and “classic.”