Keeping Score, by Linda Sue Park; Clarion Books: New York, 2008; $16 Before I read Keeping Score, when I thought of baseball, I thought of boys. I thought the only way people got to know the game of baseball was by playing it. After I read it, I was inspired to learn more about the baseball teams in my area (the Cubs and the White Sox). Before I knew it, I was watching games on TV, and even getting to be a pretty good hitter! Now, baseball doesn’t seem so much like a boy thing anymore! During the Korean War, which is when Keeping Score takes place, playing baseball almost always was for boys. But Maggie, the main character, knows the game of baseball like the back of her hand, and she got to know it the hard way: by listening to every single Brooklyn Dodgers game on the radio. She never misses a pitch. In fact, it is while she’s listening to a game at the nearby firehouse where her dad used to work that she meets Jim. He’s another intense fan, but for the New York Giants. The two talk baseball, compare favorite players, and laugh about most everything. And perhaps most importantly, it’s Jim who teaches Maggie to keep score. And keeping score of a baseball game isn’t the same as scoring a soccer game, or a football game. Keeping score of a baseball game requires concentration, and a really huge knowledge of baseball. Everything changes when Jim is drafted into the Korean War. But at least sending letters back and forth from Korea to America is sort of fun for Maggie. And while letters are going back from Korea to America, the Dodgers are winning game after game. It means a lot to every Dodgers fan, especially Maggie! You see, the Dodgers had never won the World Series. Not even once. But now, even the Yankees (their main rivals) are being crushed by the Dodgers! There are so many wins that the losses hardly matter. And then, something horrible happens. After hours of carrying bodies in from the battlefield, Jim stops walking, talking, and moving altogether. He’s suffering from what your parents might call post-traumatic stress syndrome. And right after the Dodgers’ huge winning streak, they lose the pennant game! To the Yankees! Both baseball and life are a cycle of hope and disappointment, and with the Dodgers out of the World Series and Jim sick from the war, it seems like disappointment is all there is. But I think that Maggie’s love of baseball really helps her get through all these setbacks. After all, even after Willie Mays strikes out five times, he still has the determination to come up to bat and hit a solo home run. And it really helps me to think about this idea too. Little disappointments happen to me every day, solo auditions I didn’t get, the White Sox losing a game, a test I didn’t ace. It’s important to just keep trying. So Maggie comes up with a plan. She decides that when Jim comes home she will take him to see a Giants game at Ebbets Field. She spends months saving up for it. And that’s not all. To help Jim get better she decides to do the hardest thing she has ever had to do in her life: pray for the Giants to win the World Series. I will not tell you how this all works itself out—you’ll just have to read it for yourself! But what I really admire about Maggie is how she had the strength to sacrifice all of this just to help a friend. Eliza Edwards-Levin, 10Chicago, Illinois
Book-Reviews
In Mozart’s Shadow: His Sister’s Story
In Mozart’s Shadow: His Sister’s Story, by Carolyn Meyer; Harcourt Children’s Books: New York, 2008; $17 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was gifted in music beyond imagination. He was a genius, a prodigy. He is remembered and respected by thousands of people all over the world as one of the greatest composers. But no one remembers his sister, Nannerl Mozart. She was almost as talented as Wolfgang, but she was a girl. Possibly the best harpsichordist of her time, Nannerl was pushed away from her musical dreams to make room for her brother’s brilliance. As children, Wolfgang and Nannerl sat for hours, side by side, at the harpsichord, making music together. At one point in Carolyn Meyer’s book, In Mozart’s Shadow, Nannerl says, “My brother might tease me about almost anything but he never said a critical word about my keyboard technique. I adored him for that.” I found In Mozart’s Shadow to be a rather sad, yet compelling story, not because of death or tragedy, but because Nannerl had more disappointments than joys. Her one solace was her music. I have had three very disappointing piano teachers, causing me to lose joy in my music. But reading Nannerl’s story and how she loved making music has inspired me to love playing again. I live in a pretty, small town, not as ancient and refined as Salzburg, Austria, where the Mozarts lived, yet like it in some ways. Sometimes when I am at home, I feel caged and isolated, and when I am away from home, I miss it and realize how wonderful it is. In the story, Nannerl Mozart can never achieve her full potential living in Salzburg, but she yearns for it when she leaves it. The character I could not make up my mind about was Nannerl’s father, Leopold Mozart. He was a devoted teacher to his children and he took them all over Europe. They traveled to the courts of the greatest powers of the time, to entertain the nobility with their extraordinary playing. But soon Leopold gave all his attention to Wolfgang and forgot his daughter until the end of his life when he needed her. I have conflicting feelings about Leopold; I can see why he would give up his talented daughter for his brilliant son. However, to leave Nannerl behind when he took Wolfgang to Italy, and not give her her chance, was awful. Leopold loved his daughter, but she was a girl, and her only respectable future in his eyes was marriage. The father and son traveled to Italy numerous times, where Wolfgang studied music. Yet Wolfgang resented the never-ending control of his father and he longed to break away. Probably all of us have known someone who grew up too closely tied by their parents and when they broke free they became distant or moved away, fearing to be fettered again. So it was with Wolfgang. My brother and I often play with dolls. We can spend hours making up stories for the dolls to act out. Nannerl and Wolfgang did a similar thing with chess pieces. As they played the game of chess, they would make up stories for the pieces to live out. Nannerl often felt that she and Wolfgang were two halves of one person, and when they played together they became whole. I thought Carolyn Meyer wrote a beautiful story about people who really lived. Through the eyes of Nannerl Mozart, the characters struggle and achieve, living out their lives with both sorrow and joy. Gertrude S. Suokko, 13Woodstock, Vermont
Summer Ball
Summer Ball, by Mike Lupica; Philomel Books: New York, 2007; $17.99 Have you ever read the sequel to a book that you loved and felt utterly disappointed or, even worse, robbed? If you read Travel Team, by Mike Lupica, which was reviewed by Zach Hoffman in the May/June 2007 edition of Stone Soup, and decide to read Summer Ball, you will feel anything but robbed. Summer Ball is an amazing book written by the best sportswriter in the business. In the book, Danny Walker is coming off leading his team, the Middletown Warriors, to a travel team championship. His dad, a former NBA player, Richie Walker, decides that Danny will go to a famous basketball camp in Maine, the Right Way Basketball Camp. Even though Danny’s two best friends, Ty Ross and Will Stoddard, are going, Danny is worried about attending camp because he fears not being good enough or tall enough to compete well against some of the other campers, the best players his age in the country. When he arrives, his fears are realized. A player that played against Danny in the travel team championship game, Rasheed Hill, hates him and is attending camp. He is put on the same team as Danny, and their coach wants Rasheed to be the star of the team. When Danny visits the coach, the coach suggests that Danny try soccer. Danny is able to fight through all of these hardships and make it to the championship game, while standing up for his new friend, Zach Fox, in a fight with one of the best players in camp, Lamar Parrish. When Danny first arrives at camp, he realizes that he isn’t one of the best players there. One time, when I was eight, I went to a basketball camp. The camp was divided into two divisions. According to my age, I belonged in the top division. But after a few minutes of practice, I was demoted to the lower division, even though I felt like I was doing fine. But, just like Danny, I continued trying and I was promoted. My favorite part of the book is when Rasheed stood up for Danny during the championship game. Throughout the book, Rasheed and Danny slowly gain respect for each other and become friends. Because Coach Powers wouldn’t play Danny, Rasheed told Coach Powers that if Danny didn’t play, he wouldn’t play. When Coach put Danny back in, he led a huge comeback. Another one of my favorite parts was when the ref called a technical foul on Lamar. In my basketball league, there was one team that was very dirty. They were never called for a technical foul. In the book, the campers could cheer for whatever team they wanted. We got revenge on the dirty team by attending the league play-off game they were in and cheering loudly for the other team. One thing the author does extremely well is dialogue. Even though the camp is in Maine, it attracts players from all over the country. One of the friends Danny meets, Tarik, is from New York City, so he has a different vocabulary than the kids from Long Island. This is kind of funny because he uses terms that Danny (and I) don’t know. I definitely recommend this book about basketball, friendship, and teamwork. Once you pick it up, it is hard to put down. Aidan Quigley, 12Trumbull, Connecticut
