6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Baseball Great, June 5, 2009
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ISBN 0061626864 - As a baseball fan, I'll read any baseball book - statistical analysis to childrens' book. As a parent and former coach, I especially like childrens' books that ring true, partly because they remind me of my kid - now playing college ball. This book doesn't quite ring true and I detract a star for that, but it is good, it's very readable and I think the target audience will look past things that bother me.
Josh is following in his father's footsteps. Mr LeBlanc is the MVP of a Triple A farm team and Josh is better than his father was at his age, in part because his father is determined to make it so. Josh's skills between the lines catch the eye, and the heart, of new girl and baseball fanatic Jaden, who crowns him the great hope of the school's team in an article in the school paper. Meanwhile, cut from the team when he is deemed over the hill, Josh's dad turns his energy to Josh's baseball future, forcing him to quit his school team and join an elite travel team coached by Rocky Valentine. Jaden and Benji, Josh's best friend, don't like this news and friendships are strained - until Josh finds himself in over his head and in need of help.
The story is great. It's well written and a very easy read. This is a huge thing in books geared toward boys, who are often the more reluctant readers. My problems with the book - First, there's Josh's dad. I've known plenty of has-been and never-were ballplayers who live vicariously through their sons and I found the "anything to win" outlook believable. What is not believable is that the man worked his entire life in a sport currently and frequently in the news for steroid abuse, from the MLB players to high school aged kids, and he failed to question, or even suspect, the training system in use by Coach Valentine. Sorry, but I don't buy it. Also - U14? 14U = 14 and Under. U14 would seem to mean Under 14 - so why are there 14 year olds on the team?
Next, I have two problems with Josh and his friends. Talk about precocious twelve year olds! The conversations they have are off. Maybe one of them, most plausibly Jaden, might speak as if they were adults, but the whole lot of them? Not only does this not ring true, but it seems to me that it creates an unintentional distance, so that the average 12 year old reading the book would see the characters as older and not immediately relatable. That would put the lesson in the "won't matter until I'm older" category and THAT would be counter-productive. Beyond conversations, there are the romantic entanglements that (a) simply don't work for 12 year olds and (b) add nothing to the story. Green seems to back off the romance with a stilted conversation in which two twelve year olds attempt to define "going out". I cringed.
Last, the book itself, a couple small things. The chapters are bizarre. Sometimes, the chapter will end almost mid-conversation, which is weird but it gets weirder - the scene continues in the next chapter. So why have a chapter break? Especially since some of the chapters are just barely a full page of text, spread out over two pages with a lot of white space. The amount of white space also bothers me, if only because it's a waste of paper. The font is huge, appropriate to books for younger kids, but wrong in a book for older ones.
The good news is, none of this ruins the story much. The topic is compelling and timely, one all baseball fans, young adults and adults, will enjoy. And, if you've got a budding baseball great of your own, it's a nice, non-preachy way to enlighten them about the very real dangers of steroids.
- AnnaLovesBooks
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Teacher's Grade: B+, March 24, 2009
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I teach 4th grade and also coach baseball and basketball for kids aged 8-13. Tim Green's newest book is a warning against steroid use in youth travel teams, and is on a par with Mike Lupica's book,"Travel Team," in terms of quality. That means that while boy readers might like the book for its short chapters and sports-themed action, the quality of the book isn't high.
This story features a bloody fist-fight in a mall bathroom, kids using steroids, and some boy-girl drama that is totally out of place within the confines of the story. The main character is forced by his father to quit his school baseball team and try out for a travel team. Many of the kids act in ways that are superficial and unrealistic.
If short chapters that stop and start at artificial breaking points don't bother you, and your only goal is to get your kid to read a book, this book will fit the bill!
It's not literature, but it's entertaining.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another great sports book from Tim Green, March 19, 2009
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My 5th grade son loves books about sports. He's grown out of (the great) Matt Christopher books, and I am always on the lookout for YA sports books.
Last year Tim Green, a former Atlanta Falcon, wrote 'Football Hero' and 'Football Genius'. I immediately snapped them up for my son, and he devoured them and begged for more like them. We were sad to discover that although Tim Green has written other books, they are adult novels. So I was thrilled to see a new YA sports-themed Tim Green book released.
My son read 'Baseball Great' in one day and gave it a 10 out of 10 rating!
This is a story about Josh, a 12 year-old who moves from town to town because his domineering Santini-esque father is a minor league baseball player and keeps getting traded. Josh plays baseball too, he's got talent, and baseball season is about at his new school; he's excited to play for the team with his friends, and to maybe the star of the team. But his father yanks him off the school team and forces him to try out for a traveling U14 youth league team, the Titans, run by Rocky Valentine. Rocky makes his boys lift weights, drink 'Super Stax' shake supplements, and work hard. Despite being only 12, Josh makes the team. Now his school friends are mad at him for leaving the team, and the travel team kids hate him for causing one of them to be cut to make room for Josh. Things, of course, get worse from there, and Rocky is indeed the villain.
'Baseball Great' is an exciting, fast-paced book that should appeal to most YA readers (I would think that boys ages 10-13 would most enjoy this book). You don't have to be a sports fan to enjoy it, it has plenty of middle-school themes, but a sports-oriented kid will really love this book.
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