Brian Boyer, head women’s basketball coach at Arkansas State University, will serve as reader for the May Stories in the Forest program at 3 this afternoon at The Mall at Turtle Creek. He will read Dino Basketball by Lisa Wheeler.
Boyer will bring some of the ASU Women’s Basketball players with him this afternoon.
The book, published by Carolrhoda Books, has been called vibrant and highly animated. It is the fourth in Wheeler’s book series that puts athletics into the midst of animals of extinction. Written in fast-paced rhymes like her other sports-related books, this story pits the carnivorous dinosaurs – the Meat – against the herbivorous dinos – the Grassclippers.
In it, March Madness is in full swing … and dino basketball fans make their way to Mastadon Square Garden to watch the Grassclippers take on the Meat.
Wheeler has written a number of books that introduce young children to various sports – baseball, soccer, hockey and more. And each incorporate staccato rhyming schemes in which play-by-play “announcers” call the games, cheerleaders urge the crowd to get involved and coaches get agitated.
The book masterfully introduces youngsters to basketball as well as a variety of dinosaurs – Triceratops, Stegosaurus, Pachycephalosaur, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Pterodactyls and Allosaurus. Adults have almost as much fun with this one as the kids.
Wheeler, who did not start writing until her children grew older, she decided she would try what she always wanted to do … but never ventured into – writing children’s books. She has a number of children’s books her credit. Her other “sports” books include Dino Soccer, Dino Hockey and Dino Baseball.
Other books she has written include New Pig in Town, Uncles and Antlers, Sailor Moo: Cow at Sea, Castaway Cats, Old Cricket, Boogie Knights, Farmer Dale’s Red Pickup and more.
The Stories in the Forest program gives parents some quality time with their children and exposes children to some favorite books of local residents. It is an outgrowth of the St. Bernards Women’s Advisory Council’s tremendously successful Kidz Fun Fair.
The Women’s Advisory Council is a group of about 120 area women who have joined together in an advisory role to give input on important healthcare issues impacting women and children. They encourage educational as well as service outreach efforts designed to make Jonesboro a better place to live, work and raise families.
The program is open to the interested public free of charge.