I had the honor of interviewing author David A. Kelly for the release of his book, Babe Ruth and the Baseball Curse (A Stepping Stone Book(TM)) two years ago here at Get in the Game Read! That's why when I found out that he was going to be the author of an upcoming baseball series, I couldn't wait to get my hands on a copy! The series is called The Ballpark Mysteries and as you can probably guess, it combines mysteries and some of the most famous ballparks across the United States! Talk about a great combination!

The first book in The Ballpark Mysteries, Ballpark Mysteries #1: The Fenway Foul-up (A Stepping Stone Book(TM)), takes place at Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox. Mike Walsh and Kate Hopkins are cousins and since Kate's mom is a sports reporter, they get great seats and not to mention, all-access to the ballpark. What kid wouldn't dream of that? However, as they watch batting practice, they discover that the bat of Big D, the Red Sox's best hitter, is stolen! Mike and Kate set off an adventure to uncover the clues that will solve the mystery.

I really enjoyed The Fenway Foul-up and can see how any 6- 9 year old baseball fan would step to the plate and devour this book like a box of Crackerjacks! Kelly intersperses the perfect mix of sports action, crime-solving and facts about Fenway Park. For example, young readers will be fascinated to learn that Fenway Park still uses a hand-operated scoreboard and the initials of the former owners are even hidden on the scoreboard. Dugout Notes at the end of the book provide more fun-filled baseball facts and you can catch a glimpse of Book #2, The Pinstripe Ghost--can't wait for this one!

To learn more about the series, please visit the official website, which even contains a personal blog from Mike Walsh himself.

Additional Information:
Reading level: Ages 6-9
Paperback: 112 pages
Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers (February 22, 2011)
ISBN-10: 0375867031
ISBN-13: 978-0375867033
Source of review copy: Publisher

Disclosure: Some of the books I review are received from publishers , PR agencies, and authors, but it does not sway my opinion of the book. I maintain affiliate accounts with Amazon and Barnes & Noble. If you purchase a book through one of my links, I will receive a small commission (at no cost to you). You can support this site by originating your purchase via these links and I appreciate your support of Get in the Game--Read!

About the book: Connor Sullivan is an All-Star shortstop on his Babe Ruth team, the Orioles. He can hit and field with the best of them, but he's got one big problem: his temper. When he strikes out or makes an error, he's a walking Mt. Vesuvius, slamming batting helmets and throwing gloves. His teammates are starting to avoid him, even his best friend Jason. His coach is ready to kick him off the team.

To make matters worse, things aren't much better at home. His dad is having trouble finding a new job after being laid off. Money is tight. Connor's dream of attending the prestigious Brooks Robinson Baseball Camp this summer seems like just that now-a dream.

When the sports editor of the school paper threatens to do a big story on his tantrums-complete with embarassing photos-Connor realizes he has to clean up his act. But can he do it in time to regain his teammates' trust and help the Orioles win the championship against the best team in the league?

Watch the video...

Want to read an all-star of a story about the first woman inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame? She Loved Baseball: The Effa Manley Story will have you inspired by the courage of one woman who was determined to fight for what was right.

When Effa was in first grade, she was scolded for playing with "those Negroes in the schoolyard." But "those negroes" were Effa's brothers and sisters. While Effa's skin was light, like her mother's, her siblings were dark and Effa was taught that discrimination was just the way things were.

But after high school, Effa moved to New York City and set out to live the big life she dreamed of. Effa enjoyed Yankee's games and met a kind, fun-loving man, Abe Manley who adored baseball. But when Effa went out on the town with Abe in Harlem, she realized that discrimination was still rampant as most businesses were owned by white people.

Effa, determined to change things, organized the Citizen's League for Fair Play, a group of community leaders who urged Harlem's largest department store to hire black salesclerks. Before long, hundreds of black people were working. Just as the business world was changing, so was the world of baseball. Abe and Effa married in 1935 and started a team in the new Negro National League. Effa had never organized schedules or ordered equipment, but Effa ended up handling almost all of the team's business. Most owners protested, stating that baseball was no place for a woman, but Effa persisted, fought for her players and became the first woman ever to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Audrey Vernick, the author of Is Your Buffalo Ready for Kindergarten?, profiles an amazing woman who fought hard for what was right and proved that she loved baseball. Not only will young readers get an introduction to civil rights, Negro Leagues, and women's rights, they'll also be inspired that anyone can create change.



Additional Information:
Reading level: Ages 4-8
Hardcover: 32 pages
Publisher: Collins (October 19, 2010)
ISBN-10: 0061349208
ISBN-13: 978-0061349201
Source of review copy: Publisher

Disclosure: Some of the books I review are received from publishers , PR agencies, and authors, but it does not sway my opinion of the book. I maintain affiliate accounts with Amazon and Barnes & Noble. If you purchase a book through one of my links, I will receive a small commission (at no cost to you). You can support this site by originating your purchase via these links and I appreciate your support of Get in the Game--Read!

Capstone imprint Stone Arch Books, recently announced the winner of its Create Your Own Sports Star nationwide contest, inspired by the publisher’s partnership with Sports Illustrated KIDS. The winner was selected from more than 23,000 total votes cast from kids nationwide from March 20 through April 11.

Receiving more than 70% of the votes, Justin Cox, a 4th grade student from Timmerman Elementary School in Pflugerville, Texas, was selected as the first place winner. Justin’s fictional character, Dash the Flash, will be the featured character in a Sports Illustrated KIDS Graphic Novel available Jan. 1, 2011, in hardcover and paperback formats. Justin, along with his school, will be included in a page at the back of the book.

“We’re so proud of all of our finalists. They each created exciting characters that will thrill readers!” said Lori Benton, General Manager/Publisher of Capstone Fiction. “Kids came out in full force, casting their votes for their favorite characters and we now have a clear winner. We couldn’t be happier to start production on FULL COURT FLASH, a graphic novel starring Dash the Flash.”

Capstone imprint Stone Arch Books, a children's fiction publisher, announced the top five finalists in its Create Your Own Sports Star nationwide contest, inspired by the publisher’s partnership with Sports Illustrated KIDS. The contest invited students in grades 3-6 to create their own fictional sports super star to be the featured character in an upcoming Sports Illustrated KIDS Graphic Novel.

Season five of Step Up to the Plate @ your library is now open for librarian registration. The American Library Association (ALA) and the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum’s Step Up to the Plate program teams up two American classics – libraries and baseball – to promote information literacy and the library as an essential information resource.

Librarians can now start the spring training season by visiting the program’s Web site to register for free promotional tools to help promote the program locally. Step Up to the Plate launches to the public on Monday, April 5, to coincide with the start of the 2010 baseball season.

Tools include program logos in both English and Spanish, a downloadable poster and bookmarks and a toolkit that includes sample press materials and programming ideas. The first 100 libraries to register will receive a Jackie Robinson “History Lives” poster from ALA Graphics.

Step Up to the Plate @ your library encourages people of all ages to use the print and electronic resources available at their library to answer a series of trivia questions designed for their age group (10 and under, 11-13, 14-17 and 18 and over). One grand-prize winner will receive a trip for two in October to the Hall of Fame’s World Series Gala event in Cooperstown, N.Y., including a behind-the-scenes tour of the library and archives. The program will run through Sept. 4, 2010.

This year, Step Up to the Plate @ your library celebrates the history of baseball and the preservation of our cultural heritage, as a tie in to ALA’s first Preservation Week. For more information on Preservation Week, visit www.ala.org/presevation.

The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is a partner in the Campaign for America’s Libraries (www.ala.org/@yourlibrary), ALA’s public awareness campaign that promotes the value of libraries and librarians. Thousands of libraries of all types – across the country and around the globe - use the Campaign’s @ your library® brand. The Campaign is made possible in part by ALA’s Library Champions, corporations and foundations.

Other partners are Carnegie Corporation of New York, Dollar General, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), Univision Radio, Verizon and Woman's Day magazine.

I don't know about you, but the Winter Olympics always get me in sports mode. It's easy to find myself glued to the TV, cheering for the United States in everything from hockey to ski jumping to snowboarding (Yay, Shaun White!).

Just in time for the Olympics comes The Greatest Moments in Sports by veteran sportscaster Len Berman. But you'll find much more than the Olympics. Len Berman has covered just about every major sporting event, including Super Bowls and World Series.

What's interesting about this book is what Len Berman states in the introduction, "What were the greatest moments in sports history? Ask 25 sports fans, and you may get 25 different answers." Throughout the book, Berman offers up some stories, stats and pictures to help spark your next debate on this very topic. Consider the greatest play in Super Bowl history...when David Tyree leaped into the air, with defensive back Rodney Harrison draped all over him. He somehow held on to the ball for an absolutely amazing 32-yard play down to the Patriots 24-yard line. Or how about when Wilt Chamberlain scored a double triple-double? What about when Cassius Clay beat Sonny Liston. Phew--pretty tough, right?

What I like about this book is that not only are the highly recognizable sports stars like Jordan and Woods highlighted, but so are Roger Bannister and Nadia Comaneci. What's also cool is that the book comes with a CD that contains the live broadcast audio of a dozen incredible moments chronicled in the book, including the U.S. Olympic hockey team's miracle on ice and Michael Phelps breaking Mark Spitz's Olympic swimming record. Just what you need to relive those magical moments and send chills up your arms.


So what would you call the greatest moment in sports?

About The Author:
Len Berman is a veteran sportscaster and creator of “Spanning the World,” a monthly collection of sports bloopers, which was a 20-year staple on NBC’s Today Show. Berman is the recipient of eight Emmy Awards and is a six-time winner of New York Sportscaster of the Year. His daily Top 5 email is featured in The Huffington Post and is received by thousands around the country.

Additional Information:
Reading level: Ages 9-12
Hardcover: 144 pages
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky; Har/Com edition (November 11, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1402220995
ISBN-13: 978-1402220999
Source of review copy: Publisher

Disclosure: Some of the books I review are received from publishers , PR agencies, and authors, but it does not sway my opinion of the book. I maintain affiliate accounts with Amazon and Barnes & Noble. If you purchase a book through one of my links, I will receive a small commission (at no cost to you). You can support this site by originating your purchase via these links and I appreciate your support of Get in the Game--Read!

You never heard of Jonah Winter?! Jonah Winter is THE author of You Never Heard of Sandy Koufax?!, Muhammad Ali: Champion of the World, and Dizzy. He is also the author of Diego: In English and Spanish, a biography of Diego Rivera, and Frida (English Language Edition), about artist Frida Kahlo, which was hailed as "a grand accomplishment, worth celebrating" by the New York Times Book Review and named a 2002 Parents' Choice Gold Medal winner.

The poet and amateur opera star has written picture-book biographies on everyone from Gertrude Stein to Barack Obama. Born in 1962 in Fort Worth, Texas, Winter spent most of his childhood painting pictures, playing musical instruments and writing poems. When he wasn’t doing these things, he was either collecting baseball cards, studying his baseball cards, or trading his baseball cards. Today, Winter still likes poetry and painting, but also focuses on writing children's picture book biographies sure to entertain, educate, and enlighten young readers.

Winter’s striking picture book biography on Sandy Koufax shows how Koufax experienced discrimination as one of the only Jewish players in the game and is a Sydney Taylor Honor Book for Young Readers. The Sydney Taylor Book Award is presented annually to outstanding books for children and teens that authentically portray the Jewish experience. Presented by the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) since 1968, the Award encourages the publication and widespread use of quality Judaic literature.

In addition to taking home the recognition as a Sydney Taylor Honor Book for Young Readers, the book has also garnered the "Top of the List" award from Booklist as the best children's non-fiction book of 2009. It was recognized as a Booklist "Editor's Choice," and was also selected by Kirkus and Parents Magazine as one of their "Best Children's Books of 2009." Oh, and did I mention it was just announced as an ALA Notable?

I'm jumping up and down that the Sydney Taylor Book Award blog tour brings Jonah Winter to Get in the Game--Read! So without further ado, let's dive into some questions...

What kind of icon is Sandy Koufax in Jewish culture and why were you inspired to write about him?
What kind of icon is Sandy Koufax in Jewish culture?!? He's right up there with Moses, as far as I can tell. Or at least, that's the sense I've gotten from conversations I've had with Jewish audiences at various presentations I've done for this book. He's huge. And the reason for that is mainly due to the stance he took during the 1965 World Series, when he refused to pitch Game 1 because it fell on Yom Kippur, the most holy of Jewish High Holy Days. He took this stance at a point in American history wherein our society was still plagued by a lot of blatant anti-Semetism, and announcing one's Jewishness to the world was by no means something that anyone would have taken for granted. What Koufax did with this one act was tantamount to a game-changer, in terms of Jewish pride. This one act spoke volumes, but mainly it said, "I'm Jewish -- and I'm proud to be Jewish." What an example he set! Here's this incredibly successful, incredibly talented, incredibly handsome man... using a national spotlight to announce his Jewish pride to the world. The fact that he wasn't particularly religious was irrelevant. The fact that he was the most dominant pitcher of the 1960s during his 6-year span of glory, however, was extremely important. Had he been a mediocre player, this act would not have meant anything. In 1963, he had made the cover of Life Magazine for his pitching prowess. He was already a baseball/pop-culture icon. His decision to sit out that World Series game placed him in the highest echelon of Jewish American icons. What interested me about him, though, was the oddity of his career -- a career that began with 6 mediocre years... followed by the most amazing 6 years any pitcher has ever strung together, and then ended abruptly when he was still quite young. It remains to this day a head-scratcher. The fact that he is the J. D. Salinger of baseball also interested me -- there is something undeniably intriguing about someone who doesn't want to be known, whose life presents a mystery.

How did you research and prepare to write "You Never Heard of Sandy Koufax?"
Given the fact that Mr. Koufax is such a private person, who has not encouraged biographers to delve into his personal life, research was a challenge. I relied heavily on the recent biography by Jane Leavy quite a bit, just to get a sense of what he was like as a person, but truthfully, his baseball record is a matter of common knowledge. The Ken Burns baseball documentary was useful for watching film clips of his pitching, which of course was at the heart of the story. My picture book biographies are generally 32 pages long, with just a couple of sentences per page, and geared towards an extremely young readership. I don't intend for them to be full-length adult biographies, exhaustive in their details, or packed with huge amounts of information. My task is to take the basic story of someone's life... and then see how much information I can eliminate. The point is to tell a good story. If you're just presenting a long list of facts about the subject's life, you will lose your readership -- that is, if you're writing for what I like to call the Attention Deficit Disorder Set, i.e., young children. It is possible to tell an interesting picture book story about someone without knowing volumes of information about that person. At least, that seems to be the case with this book, given the positive response it's gotten!

Many of your nonfiction books make brilliant use of voice to bring your subjects to life. For example, Dizzy, uses a beatnik, beat-poetry voice and "You Never Heard of Sandy Koufax?!" uses old-school Brooklyn slang. How do you find the voice of your subjects?
I let the subject itself lead me to the voice. As far as finding the right voice to narrate a kids' book on Dizzy Gillespie goes, the Beatniks loved bebop, and they had a playful way of expressing themselves which I thought children would dig, Daddy-o. They were inspired by this jazz and they often gave readings accompanied by live jazz. Those were the days! Nowadays, poetry readings, most of them anyway, just consist of narcissistic losers, fresh from some graduate school creative writing factory, reading incomprehensible garbage in a monotone while other narcissitic losers listen on, hoping to advance their "careers" somehow by their presence at said readings. But I digress.... My recent book on Gertrude Stein uses a Gertrude Stein voice (a voice which has been imitated and parodied for generations): No-brainer. Finding the right voice for the Koufax book was tougher. But the more I thought about how inscrutable this guy is, the more I started heading in the direction of a sort of Ring Lardner voice. Lardner often used "old-timey" voices, with loads of personality, to tell his sports stories. Once I hit on that, I knew it was the right way to go -- it definitely fit the subject matter. Voice is important to me. In my poetry for adults, practically all of my poems are told from the vantage point of some persona -- and many of them are dramatic monologues. I really don't see the point of writing or reading poems that lack a distinctive voice. And that has definitely affected how I write for children.

I read that you still have all your baseball cards from when you were a boy. How did you avert such disasters as your Mom throwing away your prized collection?
Why would my mother have thrown away my baseball cards? She's not a sadist! I guess there are some people who, upon becoming adults, leave their cards in the attics of their parents' homes. Well, not this pig. I've always carried them around with me in my 1980 census bag (my first job out of high school was as a census taker), hauling them from one residence to the next, all 28 domiciles! (I've moved around a lot. In fact, that's what inspired me to write my book The 39 Apartments of Ludwig van Beethoven. I still have 11 to go...!)

Many agree that "You Never Heard of Sandy Koufax?" isn't just a tribute to Koufax, but a tribute to old-time baseball. We've seen a majority of sports books for children focus on baseball. Why do you think that is?
Well, geez, I guess all my baseball books are a tribute to old-time baseball, given the fact that they're all about baseball history. I must admit, I (like many other people) am disheartened by the current state of things in baseball, though I must also admit that I do still like to catch a game now and then. No matter how much baseball has been perverted through money and steroids and corrupt billionaire owners, it still retains much of its original beauty when it's being played. Once you become addicted to baseball and to baseball history, to that continuum that started back in the 1800s, it's hard to ever kick that addiction. Baseball has inspired writers for generations -- it's a sport which is very easy to wax poetic over. And even if it has been overtaken by football and basketball as America's most-viewed pastime, I don't think it has been usurped by those sports as the most important sport of writers. And writers are the ones who write the books, both for kids and adults. And another thing: Baseball, regardless of the afore-mentioned modern taints, is still pretty innocent and accessible, as far as games go. There's not a lot about the game itself that you need to protect children from. Football and hockey, on the other hand, are absurdly violent sports. And basketball (from high school to pro) is a sport played mainly by the very tall. Plus, basketball, football and hockey are very expensive sports to attend. Baseball, though, attracts a variety of body types, it's not generally violent, and the Major League games are generally affordable to attend. It's one of the great things besides jazz that America has created. Why shouldn't there be lots of books on baseball for kids?

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Thanks, Jonah for stopping by and congratulations! Thankfully, there are lots of books on baseball for kids, including You Never Heard of Sandy Koufax?!

Be sure to check out the entire schedule for the Sydney Taylor Book Award blog tour. There are so many wonderful books, authors and illustrators highlighted-- if you don't check them out, that would be like never hearing of Jonah Winter. Gasp!