THE SLUGGERS CLUB

A smiley-face sports mystery in which three Little Leaguers band together to find out who's stealing their equipment—and finally catch Nong Den, their own leadoff hitter, using the missing supplies to teach baseball to the younger Cambodians in his run- down neighborhood. With the championship game coming up, the Sluggers persuade the league commissioner not to suspend Nong Den and—charged with community spirit—organize a used-equipment drive. The happy children are outfitted with their wealthier neighbors' castoffs; a previously menacing Cambodian street gang appears with garden tools to clear off a field; and the Sluggers' Club carries their team to victory. Walker mixes his cast well (there's even a girl on the team) and, in traditional fashion, blends moral and social issues—albeit on a very superficial level- -with the sports action. Still, the bland, everyone's-a-winner plot is bound to weaken reader response. (Fiction. 10-12)