GUS AND GRANDPA AT BASKETBALL

Distraction is a drag when you have to concentrate, and having Dad in the stands at the basketball game yelling at you to do this and do that can be a major sensory overload. In this seventh title in the Gus and Grandpa series, Gus is introduced to the game of basketball. It’s magic out there on the practice court: Gus likes the pace, the coach, and the sweet sound of swish as the ball kisses the net. He continues to play when visiting his Grandpa, who has a beat-up old rim out on the garage. Skipper the dog barks like crazy when Gus plays, to the point where Grandpa turns off his hearing aid “so I can hear myself think.” Games, though, are a different matter. Gus can’t focus because of the crowd noise and in particular his father calling to him to “get free” and “rebound.” Gus is so flustered he never even gets a shot off. The season looks like a disaster until Grandpa shows up at the last game to show Gus a trick on how to turn off the noise—à la Skipper—and erase the competing stimuli. A cagey story, the kind born from the likes of a special relationship shared by Gus and Grandpa, and peacefully, protectively illustrated by Stock’s gentle watercolors. (Easy reader. 6-8)