Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)ISBN 0679804269 - Cover printed in U.S.A. Manufactured in the United States of America. Marked for ages 7 to 11, RL 4.3. Kids' books aimed at boys are always nice, since boys are often tougher to turn in to readers. Even better are series books for boys, and a baseball series? That's like heaven!
Kenny and his two best friends love baseball. They try out for the major league Little League team and, somewhat to their surprise, all three boys make it. As the only three third-graders to make the team, they're nervous and Kenny, who gets a lot of positive attention, draws the unwanted attention of team leader, pitcher Rodney "Burner" Bunson. Bunson's got it in for Kenny from the start and things get worse when Kenny plays as a starter in the first game. If that's not bad enough, the coach puts Kenny in to pitch, the final nail in that coffin, as far as Burner is concerned. He threatens Kenny and harasses him and his friends whenever the chance arises, until Kenny begins to feel overwhelmed. For advice, he turns to his father, a former (short-term) major leaguer, who shares a little wisdom but tells Kenny that he'll have to decide for himself how to handle things. Things come to a head soon and all of the boys have one major hurdle to overcome before they're really a team.
The writing is not great, it almost rises to good and no more. The story is really very short and most of the book is taken up by play-by-play, leaving even less space for development of either the story or the characters. The tale of bully Rodney Bunson is left unresolved, which is a terrible way to end a book and a clear ploy to get you to pick up the next one. For that, I'd three-star the thing and call it a review, but there is a little more here. This is the first book of the series, so I'm hopeful that things will evolve further in future books. Also, I raised a baseball player and, while parents might snooze through the play-by-play stuff, baseball fans won't. At seven, my kid could come home hours after a game ended and give me (even though I'd been at the game) even more in-depth play-by-play than you'll find here. So that kind of detail may work well for the target audience. Last, I think the age range is interesting. If this was a gender-neutral book, just basing it on the length of the book, the details of the story and the vocabulary in it, I'd think the age range should be 4 to 8, but boys are boys and they really are harder to get reading than girls. If an 11 year old will continue to read because he likes this series, I can't think of one good reason to discourage him.
I'm not a fan, yet, of the Angel Park All-Stars series, but I'm willing to give them a chance. After you finish this one, check out Big Base Hit (Angel Park All-Stars #2)
- AnnaLovesBooks
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Three third-grade rookies who make the Little League baseball team aren't immediately accepted by the older players.
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