Light on actual baseball action, but the empowerment message comes through loud and clear.
A bully’s threats complicate a young baseball lover’s chance to try her hand at announcing.
Baseball may be the milieu—and the author, as part of a network announcing team for the San Francisco Giants, has plenty of specifics to impart about how the game is played and scored—but the real topic here is what girls (or women) who want to be involved in a field usually reserved for boys (or men) will have to endure or overcome. Eleven-year-old Marty is delighted to be asked at the last moment to announce her little brother Mikey’s Little League games, doing a fine job too. But then Sammy “the Smash” Simpson, slugger on a rival team, leaves her in tears (“Girls suck, and you stink as an announcer. Everyone was laughing at how bad you were. Stick to softball”) and doubting herself. Worse, the bully goes on to threaten Mikey with a beating if she doesn’t quit, and even Mikey suggests that her displays of baseball smarts are embarrassing. Marty is made of sterner stuff, though, and after pep talks from teammates and parents, she regains her self-confidence. It’s a purposive tale, only somewhat mitigated by late-inning nuance added to Sammy’s character. In Killoran’s realistic illustrations, Marty and her family look white, but her best friend and many of the players around her do not.
Light on actual baseball action, but the empowerment message comes through loud and clear. (author interview) (Fiction. 8-10)Pub Date: March 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-944903-08-4
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Cameron + Company
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2017
The second installment in this spirited series is a hit.
A new baby coming means Ryan has lots of opportunities to grow love.
Ryan has so much to look forward to this summer—she is going to be a big sister, and she finally gets to go to church camp! But new adventures bring challenges, too. Ryan feels like the baby is taking forever to arrive, and with Mom on bed rest, she isn’t able to participate in the family’s typical summer activities. Ryan’s Dad is still working the late shift, which means he gets home and goes to bed when she and her older brother, Ray, are waking up, so their quality daddy-daughter time is limited to one day a week. When the time for camp finally arrives, Ryan is so worried about bugs, ghosts, and sharing a cabin that she wonders if she should go at all. Watson’s heroine is smart and courageous, bringing her optimistic attitude to any challenge she faces. Hard topics like family finances and complex relationships with friends are discussed in an age-appropriate way. Watson continues to excel at crafting a sense of place; she transports readers to Portland, Oregon, with an attention to detail that can only come from someone who has loved that city. Ryan, her family, and friends are Black, and occasional illustrations by Mata spotlight their joy and make this book shine.
The second installment in this spirited series is a hit. (Fiction. 8-10)Pub Date: April 27, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5476-0058-8
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
Readers will enjoy this sequel from a plot perspective and will learn how to play-act a trial, though they may not engage...
This sequel to The Lemonade War (2007), picking up just a few days later, focuses on how the fourth graders take justice into their own hands after learning that the main suspect in the case of the missing lemonade-stand money now owns the latest in game-box technology.
Siblings Evan and Jessie (who skipped third grade because of her precocity) are sure Scott Spencer stole the $208 from Evan’s shorts and want revenge, especially as Scott’s new toy makes him the most popular kid in class, despite his personal shortcomings. Jessie’s solution is to orchestrate a full-blown trial by jury after school, while Evan prefers to challenge Scott in basketball. Neither channel proves satisfactory for the two protagonists (whose rational and emotional reactions are followed throughout the third-person narrative), though, ultimately, the matter is resolved. Set during the week of Yom Kippur, the story raises beginning questions of fairness, integrity, sin and atonement. Like John Grisham's Theodore Boone, Kid Lawyer (2010), much of the book is taken up with introducing courtroom proceedings for a fourth-grade level of understanding. Chapter headings provide definitions (“due diligence,” “circumstantial evidence,” etc.) and explanation cards/documents drawn by Jessie are interspersed.
Readers will enjoy this sequel from a plot perspective and will learn how to play-act a trial, though they may not engage with the characters enough to care about how the justice actually pans out. (Fiction. 8-10)Pub Date: May 2, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-27967-1
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
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