The Great Ball Game- Deborah L. Duvall and Murv Jacob

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 The Great Ball Game of the Birds and Animals

Volume 1 of the Grandmother Stories

32 page--- hardcover, clothbound, beautiful dust jacket, first edition, signed by both the author and the artist, a very collectible book.

 Reading level grades 2-6, great for precocious 1st graders   These are the greenest books anybody ever put out.  If you care about the earth and keeping it alive, you'll find this volume of great interest---perfect for parents, teachers.and  especially storylellers .   These stories take place in an indigenous  forest world that stretches from coast to coast on the American continent, before the machine age changed the land forever.

Synopsis:     When the Animals of the southeastern woodlands challenge the Birds to a game of stickball, two of the smallest animals are not allowed to play.  The Bear, the Deer and the other big animals think they are too small to compete.  In this ancient Cherokee story the little animals find a way to play in the Great Ball Game.  This is a story about courage in the face of adversity, the thrill of the game, and the joy of victory.  Teaching the virtues of creativitiy and determination, it takes us to a magical time whent the animals talked and wonderful things happened in our world.  Murv Jacob's beautiful drawings bring the characters of Cherokee legend to life, and Deborah Duvall's dialogue explains the ceremonial preparations and the rules of stickball, a game integral to Cherokee culture that is played enthusiastically to this day. 

 In 2005, the entire seven-book series, The Grandmother Stories, was the first and only series of books to win that award.