Review by New York Times Review
THE sun is shining, the school year is winding down and librarians everywhere are promoting summer reading. Promoting? Cheerleading, browbeating and nagging is more like it. Every public library children's room is gearing up. Reading records? Check. Book lists? Check. Giveaway prizes, stickers, bookmarks? Check, check, check. Parents don't need to be convinced that summer reading, at least for middlegrade students (about 811), is vital for keeping up reading skills during the break. Unfortunately, many students leave the school building clutching a faded fifthgeneration copy of a very short list of required titles. No wonder they don't want to read. There is nothing more uninspiring for a kid than a parent begging him or her to "just read five more pages" of "Charlotte's Web." We have kids lined up for the new Percy Jackson or Pendragon adventure, of course, but what about readers who haven't jumped on the fantasy bandwagon? For kids who can read but choose not to, the No. 1 request by many children whether boys or girls is for sports novels, and right now is the season for new baseball books. Although I was never a baseball fan, as a librarian I understood the appeal of sports books it's all in the inherent drama of good guys versus bad guys, the insider lingo, and of course the natural suspense of the game. Personally I just didn't see it. So it was shocking to me that these three very different novels, "Six Innings," "The Big Field" and "Keeping Score," did for me exactly what great fiction is supposed to do: it put me at the center of the action. Each could hit a summer reading home run and I can attest that one need not know baseball, or love baseball, or live baseball to be enthralled by them. It was "Six Innings" that made a baseball lover out of me. Sam Reiser, almost 13, a former star player sidelined by serious illness, is the playbyplay announcer. The book is framed around a single Little League championship game. We are rooting for Sam's team, Earl Grubb's Pool Supplies, against Northeast Gas & Electric. The cast is well rounded. We meet Scooter Wells, center fielder, who intuits the mathematics of the game "force and trajectory, distance and wind patterns. ... He knows how to read a ball coming off a bat." The right fielder and Sam's best friend, Mike Tyree, is playing the most important game of his life. He wonders whether his sister, the star basketball player, will show; her success makes him feel invisible. Tyler Weinberg is a player who lives to hit, to really smash one. Comic relief is provided by benchwarmer Colin Sweeney, who spouts lines from movies like "The Bad News Bears" and "A League of Their Own." James Preller has a gift for description so that even an ignoramus like me could picture the game in my mind's eye. The narrative sprints with staccato sentences and shorthand metaphors. Despite beginning dutifully, I felt my heart beating fast as Sam announces in the last inning: "A sweet play by Dylan Van Zant at first base! He's done everything today. Northeast is down to their last out. Up comes tough Frank Ausanio." By the time I got to the end of the inning, I needed a moment to catch my breath. A SPORTS columnist for The New York Daily News, Mike Lupica has proven his chops in the children's book world with topselling novels like "Travel Team," "Miracle on 49th Street" and "Heat." If "Six Innings" taught me the language and the tension of baseball, in "The Big Field" Lupica showed me the ardor of what it is like to live, eat, sleep and breathe the game. In contrast to Preller's book, the focus in "The Big Field" is on one player's life in the runup to the big game. Fourteenyearold Hutch is the best player on his American Legion team, in the hotshot position of shortstop until Darryl Williams, an exceptionally talented player, arrives on the scene. So Hutch is playing second when Darryl makes the gamesaving play. Is he envious? Publicly he says nah, but secretly he dreams of making the big catch. Hutch is excited when the team makes the state championship, but at home the atmosphere is stressed. Hutch and his father have difficulty talking about anything. It seems to Hutch that his dad, who used to play pro ball, should be able to help him with his batting, maybe a little practice, maybe even come to one of the games. Instead, Hutch just gets silence or what he perceives as indifference. Without getting preachy, Lupica establishes a strong moral compass so that when Hutch acts impulsively there are serious consequences not only for himself but also for his team. Although this story has all the signposts of a comingofage tale, it is the "you are there" quality and Hutch's nonstop devotion, even when benched, that keep the pages turning. IT was "Keeping Score," though, that helped me comprehend the fan's singleminded loyalty. Maggie Olivia Fortini comes from a family of baseball fans. Her older brother, JoeyMick, was named for Joe DiMaggio, and if her father had had his way "MaggieO" would have been on her birth certificate. Her dad, raised in the Bronx, is a dyedinthewool Yankees fan. Maggie, 9 years old going on 10 in 1950s Brooklyn, adores the Dodgers. We follow Maggie and her family over the course of four seasons, from 1951 to 1954, and Linda Sue Park who won the Newbery Medal for her novel "A Single Shard" perfectly paces the unfolding story. Although the novel spans years in a young girl's life, it's clear that what happens in the winter doesn't matter; it's just time spent waiting for real life baseball. Maggie's friend Jim, a firefighter at the firehouse where her dad used to work, teaches her the detailed art of keeping score. The plot is punctuated with realistic moments of superstition and magical thinking if her brother wears his blue shirt, the Bums will win, if Maggie forgoes bathroom breaks or doesn't lift her pencil, the next pitch will be a strike. As the Bums are breaking Maggie's heart, Jim is drafted and sent to Korea. When Jim returns mentally shattered, Maggie draws on the same courage and spirit as the Dodgers team to sacrifice and help her friend however she can. These three novels have more in common than their baseball theme: each presents memorable character studies, relationships, a sense of time and place. And the authors honor the sacred rule of storytelling show, don't tell. (I have also been assured by knowledgeable friends that the baseball facts are historically correct and that the plays all make sense.) Summer reading is about teamwork parents, teachers and children showing up for practice. It's not about showboating: reading the most books, the most pages, racking up the numbers. It's about patience, waiting for the right pitch, the book that comes right to you, and knocking that one out of the park. A COUPLE OF BOYS HAVE THE BEST WEEK EVER Written and illustrated by Maria Frazee. Unpaged. Harcourt. $16. A visit with grandparents becomes a dream summer vacation for two friends, if not in quite the way the grownups think. While Frazee's deadpan narration tells us one thing (nature camp, the beach, "quiet meditation"), the pictures say another, to great comic effect. Lisa Von Drasek is the children's librarian of the Bank Street College of Education.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [October 27, 2009]
Review by Booklist Review
Sports journalist Lupica scores again with a baseball tale in the classic tradition. As his American Legion team works its way to the 17-and-under league Florida State championship series, team captain Hutch finds himself both locking horns with an arrogant, immensely talented new teammate and fuming at his father's long-standing emotional distance. Writing in typically fluid prose and laying in a strong supporting lineup, Lupica strikes the right balance between personal issues and game action. By the end, father and son have both taken steps toward each other; the team has endured a set of exciting, hard-fought play-off contests; and because Hutch is an uncommonly canny, conscientious student of the game, readers can't help but come away more knowledgeable about baseball's strategy and spirit.--Peters, John Copyright 2007 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Lupica's (Travel Team) formula for success seems to be this: take a kid with big athletic talent and even bigger heart, mix in some conflict at home, add a lot of play-by-play action and end with a nail-biter game where the underdog prevails. Even so, Lupica does not fail to entertain. His latest protagonist, Hutch, is a gifted 14-year-old baseball player, devoted to his sport and even more to his team. His recent demotion from shortstop to second base, however, strains his relationship with his cocky, showstopper replacement, Darryl. Hutch also simmers with bottled-up resentment toward his former-baseball-star dad, yet he desperately seeks his father's approval, illustrating once again that what makes Lupica so good is that he not only knows sports, but he also understands how kids think. Hutch's raw passion for baseball-"the feeling that you wouldn't want to be anyplace else in the world"-and his integrity, not to mention Lupica's swift pacing, will have even reluctant readers following eagerly, hoping that Hutch pulls off another victory. Ages 10-up. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 5-8-Keith "Hutch" Hutchinson loves the game of baseball and plays like a gentleman. When hotshot shortstop Darryl Williams joins the Cardinals, Hutch's summer American Legion team, Hutch relinquishes his treasured shortstop position to play second base for the good of his team. The Cardinals hope to advance to the final league game and play at Roger Dean Stadium-the Big Field-summer home of the Saint Louis Cardinals. To achieve this goal, the two teenagers must learn to work as a team. However, Darryl is jealous of Hutch's popularity as team captain and Hutch is devastated when he sees his own father-who almost made it into major league baseball and who barely acknowledges his son's interest in the game-giving pointers to Darryl. Hutch can't seem to break down the wall of indifference his father has erected between them. Narrator Christopher Evan Welch captures the boy's hope and anxiety in Mike Lupica's action-packed novel ((Philomel, 2008), and provides a unique voice for each character. Sports fans will love the baseball plot, while all listeners will be drawn into the beautifully written story about Hutch's internal struggles, teamwork, and father-son relationships.-Tricia Melgaard, Centennial Middle School, Broken Arrow, OK (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
Hutch wants the ball--every time. However, he's no longer playing shortstop; superstar Darryl won that spot. Hutch must settle for second on the field and also with his father, a former player who doesn't communicate. Lupica clearly conveys his main character's situation; readers will care about the protagonist and his struggles. Frequent allusions to current professional baseball players may date the book. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Game by game, Keith Hutchinson's baseball team makes its way to the Florida state championships at Roger Dean Stadium. Playing on "the big field," on television, is Hutch's dream, and he'll be following in his father's footsteps. Carl Hutchinson made it all the way to Triple-A ball with the Twins, but his sad-looking eyes betray his hurt over not being quite good enough to make it all the way to the majors, and he doesn't want his son hurt the same way--by letting baseball matter too much. As in Lupica's Travel Team (2004), the father-son dynamic is at the heart of this story, a tale of baseball, dreams and what really matters most. Lupica's signature style--a weaving of long, meandering sentences and staccato bursts of sentence fragments--yields a fast-paced, completely involving story with excellent game sequences, conflicts with a fellow star player and the tension of making it to the big game and what that means for his relationship with his father. Another gift for the author's many fans. (Fiction. 10+) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
