You may know that there is a book reading competition in Oregon called Oregon Battle of the Books (OBOB). You have to read the 16 books assigned by OBOB, and remember some very specific details. Then, you and your team will have a battle against another team in which you see who can answer more “detail questions.” On my quest to read all the books, I stumbled upon Out Of Left Field by Ellen Klages. It was the third book in the series, about a girl named Katy (that uses the nickname Casey). She played baseball with the other boys. She was really good too. But she lived in San Francisco at a time where women baseball players were not accepted. So when she registered for Little League, she was rejected because she was female. However, they mentioned in the rejection letter that “[baseball] has always been the sole province of male athletes.” So, this sends Casey searching for a needle in a haystack, or in other words some professional women baseball players, while making a few friends along the way. The book is mostly wrapped around the idea that no matter how long it takes, inequality and injustice will be solved. This is helpful to remember in our hearts, especially for me, who at some points in life, just wants to break some rules like other kids. I watch kids who play video games when I study, and at some points, I wonder what I am missing out on, even though I know it is wrong. But, I always remember that in the end, I will get better grades, get a better education, get a better job, and turn out better. It also has an idea that no matter who you are, what you do, or what is your background, you are never alone. Casey found a network of females who felt the exact same way as her on baseball. I value these ideas and hope you will think well of them too. The book also has a very obvious motive of teaching us, the readers, that these women baseball players exist! I had never even heard of such a thing, and happy to support these characters in their route to fame. I also like how the author doesn’t mind adding some extra pages to talk about non-baseball related aspects of Casey’s life, like when she talked about the launch of Sputnik. Overall, I really liked the book for its morals, format, and plot. And if this book sounds appealing to you, look out for Out of Left Field by Ellen Klages in libraries and bookstores near you. Trust me. Your book will have a couple of creases by the time you put it down. Out of Left Field by Ellen Klages. Puffin Books, 2019. Buy the book here and support Stone Soup in the process!
book review
Going Solo, Reviewed by Aarush, 12
I was given Going Solo when my family and I visited a family friend some time ago. Since they knew I like Roald Dahl books, they gave me his autobiography. Even though it was written by my favorite author, it took some time for me to read them for the first time. I regret that I didn’t do it sooner. This book is, as you would expect, about Roald Dahl when he was a young adult. The book starts with Dahl on a boat to Africa. Right before this, he decided that he wanted to work for Shell because he wanted to see the world. Shell being the gas company. However, his plans get interrupted by war: World War II. In his words, “A life is made up of a great number of small incidents and a small number of great ones.” The book detailed many other things as well like the eccentricity of the people around him and other interesting bits of life. Some examples include the snake man, an Englishman (in Africa) who can catch snakes, a stray lion, and a moment in war he described as a piece of cake: firmly strapped into the cockpit of his Gladiator with a fractured skull and a bashed-in face and a fuzzy mind while the crashed plane was going up in flames on the sand of the western desert. This book was very easy to connect to because even though it was the story of his life, it was like reading fiction, not because it wasn’t believable but rather because it was so easy to understand. I then wonder whether his books were that good because life sure was. This book was quite the page turner and if you decide to read it, I hope you think so, too. One thing I liked about the book with that road all included maps of where he went, which works well with the book since he traveled a lot because of the war. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to see a different perspective of World War II. If you want to have a look through the window into Roald Dahl’s life read his autobiography, illustrated by Quentin Blake to find out more. Going Solo by Roald Dahl. Puffin Books, 1986. Buy the book here and support Stone Soup in the process!
The Hundred Dresses, Reviewed by Prisha, 8
I recently read the idiom, “Do not judge a book by it’s cover,” and I guess that’s exactly true for the book I am reviewing. The name of the book is The Hundred Dresses and it is written by Eleanor Estes, and illustrated by Louis Slobodkin. The cover also has a silver round medal, meaning that it is a Newbery honor book. So, when I saw this book in the bookstore, I was immediately drawn to it. The cover was pretty and colorful and it had beautiful and colorful illustrations inside. I quickly skimmed through the back of the book and soon bought it. I started reading the book. In the car itself. At first, I thought the book was going to be about a hundred dresses, but the real story had a very different meaning. Even though it is about a hundred dresses but, in a very different way, something that a reader wouldn’t have imagined. By reading the note from the author’s daughter in the first four pages, you can figure out that the book is about bullying. I was surprised to read that the author is one of the mean girls in the story and she wrote this book because she felt awful about how she helped a bully. She couldn’t ask for forgiveness at that time so this was her way of doing that. So basically what makes this book even more interesting is that it is written from the view of the person who is the bully’s friend and kind of bully herself. The story is about three main characters, Wanda, Peggy, and Maddie. Wanda Petronski is a Polish girl who is new to the school and in the same grade as Peggy and Maddie. She wears the same faded blue dress to school every day–yet she says she has a hundred pretty dresses, all lined up in her closet. The other girls, Peggy and Maddie, make fun of her uncommon last name and her dress and what she says about her hundred dresses. But when Wanda leaves the city and moves to another city, Maddie, one of the bullies, starts feeling bad for the way she didn’t stand up for Wanda when she was being bullied by her closest friend, Peggy, and the other girls. What I loved about this story is how at the end the mean girls realized their mistake. The story is also about friendship and realizing mistakes and forgiving and teaches you to be kind, and not bully other people, even if they have a funny name or something. And if you see a person being bullied, stand up for them. A way to remember this is, “Silence is violence,” which means you are also committing crime if you do not stand up against the bullies. Though The Hundred Dresses was written a long time ago, the message it gives, can be used today, since being kind is a message that will always be important and needed in the world. I highly recommend The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes to everyone. The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes. Houghton Mifflin, 2004. Buy the book here and support Stone Soup in the process!
