The Brooklyn Nine [Hardcover]

Alan M. Gratz (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 9 and up | Grade Level: 4 and up

1845: Felix Schneider, an immigrant from Germany, cheers the New York Knickerbockers as they play Three-Out, All-Out.

1908: Walter Snider, batboy for the Brooklyn Superbas, arranges a team tryout for a black pitcher by pretending he is Cuban.

1945: Kat Snider of Brooklyn plays for the Grand Rapids Chicks in the All-American Girls Baseball League.

1981: Michael Flint fi nds himself pitching a perfect game during the Little League season at Prospect Park.

And there are fi ve more Schneiders to meet.

In nine innings, this novel tells the stories of nine successive Schneider kids and their connection to Brooklyn and baseball. As in all family histories and all baseball games, there is glory and heartache, triumph and sacrifi ce. And it ain't over till it's over.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 7–10—In loosely connected chapters, Gratz examines how one Brooklyn family is affected by the game of baseball. Ten-year-old German immigrant Felix Schneider arrives in America in the mid-19th century and uses his speed to good advantage both on the ball field and as a runner delivering the goods his uncle, a cloth cutter, produces. His fortunes and his family's take a turn for the worse, however, when his legs are badly injured in the great Manhattan fire of 1845 (where he encounters volunteer firefighter Alexander Cartwright, the father of modern baseball). Subsequent "innings" deal with Felix's son, Louis, who has compassion for a Confederate soldier because of their shared love of baseball; Walter Snider, a Brooklyn Superbas batboy who secures a tryout for legendary Negro Leagues star Cyclone Joe Williams and discovers the ugliness of anti-Semitism and racial prejudice; and Jimmy Flint, a 10-year-old in 1957, who worries about the class bully, Sputnik, nuclear annihilation—and the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn. Curiously, the author passes over the team's glory years from the late 1940s to the mid-'50s. For the working-class Schneider/Snider family, baseball is an important part of their history, but it does little to mitigate the gritty reality of their lives. Economic uncertainty, prejudice, and the threat of violence are ever-present concerns, and the accurate, tough-minded depiction of these issues is the novel's greatest strength.—Richard Luzer, Fair Haven Union High School, VT
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From Booklist

*Starred Review* Gratz (Samurai Shortstop, 2006) builds this novel upon a clever enough conceit—nine stories (or innings), each following the successive generations in a single family, linked by baseball and Brooklyn—and executes it with polish and precision. In the opening stories, there is something Scorsese-like (albeit with the focus on players, not gangsters)  in Gratz’s treatment of early New York: a fleet-footed German immigrant helps Alexander Cartwright (credited with creating modern baseball) during a massive 1845 factory fire; a young boy meets his hero, the great King Kelly, who by age 30 is a washed-up alcoholic scraping by as a vaudeville act. The pace lags a bit in the middle innings, where a talented young girl stars in the WW II–era All-American Girls Baseball League and a card-collecting boy lives in fear of the Russians, Sputnik, and the atomic bomb. But the final two stories provide a flurry of late-inning heroics: a Little League pitcher’s shot at a perfect game told with breathtaking verve; and a neat stitching-together effort to close the book. Each of the stories are outfitted with wide-ranging themes and characters that easily warrant more spacious confines, but taken together they present a sweeping diaspora of Americana, tracking the changes in a family through the generations, in society at large for more than a century and a half, and, not least, in that quintessential American pastime. Grades 5-8. --Ian Chipman

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9 and up
  
• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Dial (March 5, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803732244
• ISBN-13: 978-0803732247
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #921,336 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I'm the author of a number of books for young readers, including Samurai Shortstop, Something Rotten, Something Wicked, The Brooklyn Nine, and Fantasy Baseball. My wife and I are also the authors of the Gratz Industries blog, where we chronicle our attempts to lead creative, productive lives.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Brooklyn Nine, May 24, 2009

By 

S. C. Mulhern "TheReadingZone" (NJ, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Brooklyn Nine (Hardcover)

For a non-baseball fan, I sure do read a lot of baseball books. The latest of these is Alan Gratz's The Brooklyn Nine. In 1845 Felix Schneider is a ten-year-old immigrant from Germany. While working to bring the rest of his family over from Germany, he cheers on the NY Knickerbockers. Over 150 years later his great-great-great-great-great grandson, Snider Flint, tracks down the history of a strange baseball bat that belonged to one of Brooklyn's greatest players. Over the 150 years in between we meet nine generations of the Schneider/Snider family, all connected by their love of baseball. The stories are a pleasant mix of history and sport, touching on historical moments like the Civil War, the 1920's mob, the All-American Girls Baseball League, the Cold War, and more. But regardless of the setting, this is a story about baseball and how it connects a family.

Each story stands alone as a single thread that is woven into the family story. I loved every story and my only complaint is that I could read an entire novel about each character. I wanted to know even more about them! But Gratz does a great job of telling each individual's story and pulling you into their life. Baseball is a part of each character's life whether they are a spectator or player. I love that Gratz includes female fans and players as some of the main characters because I have a hard time finding sports books for girls sometimes. I think that The Brooklyn Nine will appeal to boys and girls alike for this reason.

The Brooklyn Nine also appealed to the inner history buff in me. It was fascinating to view some of America's major historical events through the eyes of the Schneider/Snider family. Even better was seeing everyday life through their eyes. I would love to have a whole book about Frankie, the numbers whiz who runs the numbers game in her Brooklyn neighborhood in 1928. She's smart, funny, and a math whiz. A female math whiz in a book is a rare occurrence. Plus, she is the world's biggest Dodgers fan. My female sports fans need a book with a spunky heroine like Frankie. And the setting, with NY's mob bosses and underground gambling rings? Fascinating.

I am looking forward to booktalking this one to my class. It's got everything- sports, history, humor, adventure, strong characters, and Brooklyn. I have a class this year that is full of Brooklyn pride, so this will definitely appeal to them. I have a feeling more than a few of them will be buying their own copy, so that they don't have to wait to read mine.
If you haven't read The Brooklyn Nine yet, be sure to pick it up in your local bookstore. It's just that good!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Wonderful Read!, April 7, 2009

By 

Kristin Tubb "K.O. Tubb" (Franklin, TN) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Brooklyn Nine (Hardcover)

I have to admit that one of the only things I know about baseball is that there is no better hot dog on Earth than one eaten in the sunny bleachers of Wrigley Field. But even with my limited knowledge of the sport, I can appreciate the nine stories ("innings") of "The Brooklyn Nine." This novel has it all - humorous stories, like the feisty girl who takes on the local mafioso; heart-wrenching moments, like the boy who realizes his hero isn't what he thought he was; and a sit-on-the-edge-of-your-seat story following a pitcher as he attempts to throw a perfect game. The historical details are the icing on the cake. A wonderful read!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not just for baseball fans . . ., March 13, 2009

By 

Tracy Barrett (Nashville, TN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Brooklyn Nine (Kindle Edition)

. . . although if you love baseball, you will find an added dimension to this original book. The author calls it a novel and it can read that way, or you can see it as nine linked novellas, or as a history of the United States hung on the peg of baseball, or as a history of baseball, or as the story of an American family. I'm sure other readers can think of even more angles from which to view this touching, humorous, thought-provoking work.

Alan Gratz's clear authorial voice comes through strongly in each section, yet each has a different tone. He has a remarkable ability to develop his characters in a short space, and each of them is utterly engaging. The depth of his knowledge of and research about baseball is staggering, yet the reader never feels as though the author is teaching a lesson. Highly recommended.