The Big Field by Mike Lupica

I'm not a fan of Lupica - he's pretty much a loud mouth ESPN sports writer - a breed I tend to dislike - and I thought Heat was middling OK - but not great. But 2 fourth grade boys I know loved that book - I mean REALLY loved it. One of them is a baseball nut and a reader and the other just a reader. So I gave Lupica's newest book a ride, and I have to and hate to admit it, but I really liked it. I liked the pacing, the backstory, the characters, the setup - even if it is a typical kids' sports book that features an unnaturally gifted athlete in a championship series in which every game comes down to do or die. "Hutch" Hutchinson is a natural shortstop, a 14 year old boy who lives in a lousy neighborhood in Palm Beach County, Florida. He is the son of a Puerto Rican mom and a dad who once made it all the way to AAA baseball, but washed out. Now Hutch's dad works as a caddy and a limo driver. Hutch has always wished his dad would share baseball with him, but his dad never does. To make matters worse, Hutch has been moved to 2nd base because a young phenom (D-Will) has joined the team, and that boy has SKILLS - even if he doesn't seem to care about the team or the game - only where they can take him. The action moves along in this book, it all pulls together in the end, and Hutch finds out that his dad really does care. It all ties up neatly in a perfectly predictable way - but it is mighty satisfying and interesting along the way. I'd give this to any boy reader from about 5th grade up to 8th, and especially to your baseball or sports fan.

http://www.amazon.com/Big-Field-Mike-Lupica/dp/0399246258/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1207082107&sr=1-1



http://www.amazon.com/Big-Field-Mike-Lupica/dp/0399246258

Thumb on a Diamond by Ken Roberts

A cute and funny story about a group of kids from a tiny town on the coast of British Columbia who put together a baseball team because the only way they'll get a chance to take a school board sponsored trip to see Vancouver is if they can play in a sports tournament. The only problem in this tiny town occupying a cove that is ringed in by mountains? There's no grass in the town, no space to swing a bat or play catch, and not one of the kids has ever played. Not to worry, the children hatch a plan to be the league champs (because no other town around has a team or space to play either) and take the trip to Vancouver.

Cute but not too cloying, this is a good book for kids if they want to see how kids just like them live in other places, and how the simplest things - like grass, or a movie theater, or an escalator - can be amazing. Yet the children in the book aren't rubes or bumpkins. A charming little read.

http://www.groundwoodbooks.com/gw_titles.cfm?pub_id=608

Heat by Mike Lupica

Here's the story of a 12 year old Cuban boy whose family fled Cuba to the USA so that this boy, blessed with "the arm" can play baseball in America, and hopefully make it to the Little League World Series and eventually "the show."

Now, I am the acknowledged baseball book reader in the children's department in the library. I like baseball, I have a baseball-crazy nine-year old who likes baseball books, and I have a tendency to be one of the people who is willing to read the "boy" books. So I've read a lot of kids playing baseball and trying to pull out the big game books. Some of the best - like "The Boy Who Saved Baseball" or Dan Gutman's "Baseball Card Adventure" books - are very good indeed. Some of the others - like Mike Christopher's baseball books - are journeyman formula books that work for their audience. But let's just say the writers struggle hard to get past the whole team in the big game, something happens to jeopardize their chances, they somehow pull it out formula.

Lupica has a twist on the story in that his main character is a preternaturally gifted boy who is dogged by a real-life scandal that could kill his Little League dreams. The book makes several references to the 2001 Danny Almonte scandal. This was when a parent, coach, and others passed a Dominican boy off as 2 years younger than he was in order to play him in Little League. The real-life boy pitcher took his team to the Little League World Series, where he posted the first perfect game pitched in the series since 1957. His records were later stripped from the record books when investigation revealed he was older than his coach and parents insisted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Almonte. In Lupica's book, this scandal tars Miguel Arroyo while he and his brother work hard to hide another devastating secret.

Lupica is a sportswriter and knows his baseball, even his Little League baseball, and he pretty accurately skewers some of the more obnoxious types of kids AND coaches you find in Little League, but I wonder if he's had much contact with 12-year old boys lately, not to mention 12-year old immigrant boys who are living a supposedly hand-to-mouth existence in the Bronx. In my mind, the book has two big strikes against it - the worst is wooden and unrealistic dialogue and a main character who just doesn't feel very real. The second is repeated scenes where boys who can hardly afford the rent eat brand name foods like Coke and Oreos. Maybe it's nitpicky of me, but the details in this book bothered me immensely. So in the end I guess I'd say while the story is very good, the book itself falls short, and might not be the best pick unless you're giving it to a child who is a baseball nut.