COACHING MS. PARKER

The biggest event at Westbend Elementary is the annual teachers vs. sixth-grade baseball game. When the fourth grade discovers that their teacher dreads the humiliation of the match, they volunteer to coach her, led by their best player, Mike. Ms. Parker isn't an apt student; at first, the kids are in despair at her klutzy efforts, and the sixth graders do win the game, but Ms. Parker doesn't disgrace herself—she even makes her team's only score. Reading teacher Heymsfeld makes a good debut with this easily read, realistic story; believable dialogue moves it briskly, and Ms. Parker's informal exchange with Mike—with the help of some sure-fire titles she suggests, he begins to conquer his aversion to reading while she confronts bats and balls—is worked in casually. Appealing light fare. (Fiction. 7-10)