Trish and Ben work their way through the magical puzzles, the baseball season and some unmagical difficulties with their parents. The presence of math puzzles in a book about baseball, by far the stat-happiest sport, seems perfectly organic. The books are blank except for a single puzzle when that one is solved, another appears. Ben, who presents as white, is playing baseball for the first time since a traumatic game two years earlier, followed by the death of his Grandma Beth, who had been his inspiration as a ballplayer.īen too is a “math kid,” and he and Trish are both recipients of a mysterious gift: a book of math puzzles. Trish, whose family is Indian American, is new in town, and anxious to make friends who share her dual loves of baseball and math. In other words, it’s a story with plenty to offer those less keen on baseball. In addition to the wonders of the game, readers will encounter magical delights like fairy dust, a Fountain of Youth, Books of Power and mildly poisonous snacks. “Much Ado About Baseball,” by Rajani LaRocca, opens with the line, “Baseball is magic,” and is narrated in alternating chapters by frenemies Trish, who pitches, and Ben, who used to pitch but now plays first base. What might break the suspension of disbelief in jaded adults, however, has the potential to charm young readers, who may well relish the tidy resolution. But the game is always there, even when there’s no play-by-play, a clever balance that should keep both fans and non-fans happy.Ī coda to the action, including the appearance of a character who moves the story into fairy-tale territory, ties a bow around the package a little too neatly. Writers of baseball novels, myself included (“Keeping Score,” 2008), face the inevitable criticism from some readers that their books contain “too much baseball.” As Shenice immerses herself more deeply in what turns out to be an injustice that was done to her great-grandfather, the accounts of her team’s performance on the field grow successively briefer. But even those standard elements are given new life through the depiction of Shenice’s caring community. The mystery is solved through a combination of research, recollections from an important elderly character, entries from an old diary and, yes, investigation of an abandoned house. Despite a cast that runs well into double digits, Stone (“Dear Martin” and “Dear Justyce”) is adept at delineating personalities with quick strokes of action or dialogue. Shenice is surrounded by love and support from her family friends and teammates coaches and teachers. Instead, we follow Shenice as she explores a family mystery - why did Great-Grampy JonJon’s promising baseball career end so abruptly, just as he was about to become a major leaguer? - and leads her team on a quest for the state tournament title. Shenice’s racial identity informs her life in crucial ways while not being the novel’s main focus.īooks like “Fast Pitch” are welcome evidence that writers for young readers are continuing to move beyond narratives in which the primary problem is a character’s marginalization. This opening sets up the story perfectly: It’s about family first and playing ball second.
GEORGE CARLIN YOUTUBE BASEBALL FULL
We learn that fact on the first page, but not until after we read about the Lockwood family’s multigenerational love of baseball, and the circumstances of the current game (Shenice squatting behind home plate with the bases jammed full of opposing players).
The Firebirds play in the 12-and-under age division of the Dixie Youth Softball Association, and they are the only all-Black team in the whole league, which covers eight Southern states. Shenice “Lightning” Lockwood is the star catcher for the Fulton Firebirds softball team, as well as its captain, in Nic Stone’s accomplished middle-grade novel “Fast Pitch.” Her teammate Cala “Quickfire” Kennedy is “the best, most epic fast-pitch heat thrower” in the state of Georgia. Baseball’s complexities provide endless material for sports-loving writers, who are well aware that the action always begins on the mound. Since 2000, the library cataloging service NoveList has tallied a near-equivalent number of books published about baseball (3,050) and football (2,592), despite the latter’s sharp rise in popularity. For faithful fans of both sports, the comedian George Carlin’s classic bit about the differences between them - available in multiple iterations on YouTube - provides an it-hurts-when-I-laugh hypothesis for why football has an edge.īaseball continues to hold its own on the printed page, however. Football (or what the rest of the world calls “American football,” as distinct from soccer) is now more popular, as measured by metrics ranging from professed preference to screen viewership to ad revenue. The vaunted position of baseball as “the national pastime” has diminished in recent decades. MUCH ADO ABOUT BASEBALL By Rajani LaRocca