Picture Book Pups: Reviewing Leonard Kessler classics

On Your Mark, Get Set, Go! The First All-Animal Olympics

Leonard Kessler’s On Your Mark, Get Set, Go! The First All-Animal Olympics was published in 1972, and it’s a good story with nice pictures.

Storyline

A copy of the sports section from the New York Times has wandered into the forest, featuring stories about the 1972 Olympics from Munich.

Turtle and Owl between them figure out that the paper is talking about “Olympic Games,” which aren’t like football or baseball (at some point the animals learned baseball, too) seem to be full of races – running races, hopping races, and jumping races.

Rabbit suggests that the animals host their own Olympics, which everyone else thinks is a good idea, though someone insults Duck and she waddles off in a huff for a bit.

Since Olympic Games are a kind of game, obviously they must have teams, so Duck and Dog partner up as the Yankees, Frog and Rabbit are the Tigers, and Cat and Turtle are the Pirates.

Owl decides to be the coach, and the three little birds (who are nameless, like Woodstock’s friends) are the starter and judges. Ants make up the starting line, and Spider agrees to spin the finish line.

Worm is picked as the cheerleader and general reserve in case someone drops out.

Owl then leads everyone in a training regimen of good sleep, proper eating, doing push-ups, running, skipping, hopping and jumping.

On the day of the first hurdle race, Rabbit won for the Tigers, Dog was second because he stayed up too late the night before, and Turtle was third after crawling under all the hurdles, since he can’t jump too well.

In the second race, which involved hopping, Cat won for the Pirates, followed by Duck, while Frog never left the starting line after overeating.

Then it’s time for the big relay race, only the Yankees can’t find a stick to use as a baton, so Worm gets drafted as a stick, which she’s thrilled about.

Duck zoomed to the lead after the handoff, only to fall into a mud puddle. But Worm scooted away towards the finish line and just beat Cat to win the race.

Everyone else gives her a big cheer, though Frog grouses that it’s the first time he ever saw a stick win a race. “I’m not a stick, I’m a Yankee!” Worm retorts.

It was the greatest Olympics ever held in the woods, and as Owl said in a speech afterwards, “Everybody did something, and everybody learned something.”

Our thoughts

Of course is would be the greatest Olympics ever held in the woods, because it was the first edition…but anyway, this is a nice read promoting the value and importance of determination and patience.

Also, it makes perfect sense that just seeing pictures in a newspaper, an Olympics would be all about races of various kinds, because the ancient Olympics were (then they added wrestling at some point).

The modern Olympics, begun in 1896, were also mostly races of different types.

It’s nice that Kessler dedicated the book in part to famous Olympians, including marathoner Kip Keino and the legendary pair of Babe Didrikson and Jesse Owens.

We hope you’ve enjoyed reading our recaps; what are some of your favorite picture books starring dogs?