The postseason

Dear Annie,

I hope your weekend away has been good, filled with friends, and relaxing.

Life at the store is starting to speed up, as it is wont to do this time of year.  But before I sink into nothing-but-work, I thought I'd tip the hat to the baseball post-season.  All the teams our extended family roots for have been eliminated long since, but I seem to be obsessively following the dwindling number of games still available.  Baseball is such a pleasure, and the intensity of this time of year is always fascinating.  Tonight could be the deciding game in the NLCS, then on to the World Series.

At the start of the 2010 season, I listed a few good kids' baseball books, but I'm adding two more today.

First, we'll travel back to the summer of 1941.  My mother (your grandma) was home in New York between her junior and senior years at Rollins College in Florida.  She turned 20 that summer, my daughter Mona's current age.  Her 28 year-old boyfriend (my dad, your grandpa) was working for Life Magazine -- that might have been the summer they spent a night sleeping in Central Park (that family legend has always been fuzzy).  Although the Mets eventually turned Helen into a baseball fan, I don't know if she or Frank was paying much attention to the game that remarkable year.

The Unforgettable Season by Phil Bildner, with illustrations by S.D. Schindler tells the stories of Yankee Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak (the longest ever), and Red Sox Ted Williams' season of batting .406 (.400 hasn't been touched since).  It's a picture book -- aimed at ages 5 to 9 -- full of illustrations, statistics and suspense.  1941 also had the bittersweet distinction of being the last summer before World War II changed that generation's lives.  By the following summer, my parents were married, your grandpa was in Basic Training, and U.S. involvement in the war was in full swing.  Both Willliams and DiMaggio ended up in the military.

Getting back to the game, I offer a baseball novel that immerses the reader in the love of playing baseball. 
Six Innings, by James Preller, focuses on the Little League postseason: a regional championship game.  The structure of the novel is the innings of the game.  We get to know all the players, and the announcer, who's a former team member who now is seriously ill.  The book mixes real feelings and character development with evocative description of how it feels to be in the game.  It's one of the best-written sports books I know for middle-graders.  And while poking around online tonight to find more information about the book, I found this lovely and emotional blog entry by Preller, explaining what led him to write the book.

So, on to the World Series.  With whoever's playing.

Love,

Deborah

Historical Girl Power

Dear Aunt Debbie,

I look forward to sharing the baseball books with Eleanor when she gets a little older. Right now, of course, we have Cubs-related board books, and sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" as our last lullaby every night ("And it's root, root root for the Cubbies") -- but you understand marrying into a family with a love for a team that seems destined to lose forever. At least your Red Sox fan daughters eventually got lucky....

We've found and checked out a few random baseball-related books in the library. The one she liked best was Girl Wonder, by Deborah Hopkinson.


Girl Wonder: A Baseball Story in Nine Innings

It's based on the true story of Alta Weiss, who pitched on a minor league team starting in 1906, then quit baseball to become one of the first women doctors. It's a punchy book, and Eleanor enjoyed reading it. Like a number of historical girl-power books, however, it raises a funny issue for me: it introduces my daughter to historical prejudice and stereotyping even as it tries to debunk the stereotype. When I read dialogue in which men and boys tell Alta, "You can't play baseball! You're a girl!" I cringe. Nobody has ever told Eleanor that she can't play baseball. I kind of hate for her to have to find out.

When I opened Girl Wonder, I realized that Hopkinson was also the author of another good library find: Apples to Oregon: Being the (Slightly) True Narrative of How a Brave Pioneer Father Brought Apples, Peaches, Pears, Plums, Grapes, and Cherries (and Children) Across the Plains.



Apples to Oregon

This is a joyful, weird, tall tale of a book, also based on a historical narrative. It's told by Delicious, the oldest daughter of a tree farmer who transports a nursery full of trees from Iowa to Oregon in a covered wagon. The full-length title gives you a good sense of the tone. And while it's the father's idea to go this whole long way, Delicious and the other kids are the ones who do a lot of the tree-saving work. Empowering in another way?

Love, Annie

Play Ball!

Dear Annie,

It's springtime, and I want to talk baseball. The sport is so full of heroic figures and twists of fate that it lends itself to good picture book narrative. So here are four great pieces of baseball history:


You Never Heard of Sandy Koufax?!tells the story of Koufax’s slow start and amazing years pitching for the Dodgers. Great illustrations and lots of impressive statistics, well-presented.

No Easy Way: The Story of Ted Williams and the Last .400 Season by Fred Bowen describes the nail-biting last game of the 1941 season, when Ted Williams chose to risk his .400 average by going to bat, rather than sitting it out and taking his feat into the record books.

Teammates gives kids the Jackie Robinson Story through the lens of his friendship with Dodgers teammate Pee Wee Reese.
And
The Longest Season by Cal Ripken Jr. tells the tale of the start of the Orioles’ 1988 season in excruciating detail: the team lost 21 games before their first win. It’s a story of sticking with your teammates and family in the face of adversity and gives anyone who’s had a losing season the reminder that even the greats have been there.

These are all a little older picture books: you need a child who has some understanding of baseball. And they all hinge on the players’ characters. Good stories.

Love,

Deborah