Fenway Fever [Hardcover]

John H. Ritter (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 12, 2012 | Age Range: 10 and up | Lexile Measure: 820L (What's this?)

Happy 100th Birthday, Fenway Park!

"Stats" Pagano may have been born with a heart defect, but he lives for three things: his family's hot dog stand right outside fabled Fenway Park, his beloved Red Sox, and any baseball statistic imaginable. When the family can no longer make ends meet with the hot dog stand, life becomes worrisome for Stats. Then the Sox go on a long losing streak and the team's ace pitcher--and Stats's idol--becomes convinced the famed Curse of the Bambino has returned. Stats just has to help . . . but how? As the Sox faithful sour on their team, Stats forms a plan that ultimately unifies an entire city and proves that true loyalty has a magic all its own.

In honor of Fenway Park's 100th birthday, baseball novelist John H. Ritter delivers an inspiring tale for the sports fan in each of us, regardless of team allegiance.

Editorial Reviews

Review

New York Times bestselling author and Edgar Award winner, Peter Abrahams:
"A funny, exciting, original, and heartwarming novel that even readers who aren't Red Sox fans will love."

Kirkus Reviews:
"There's always enchantment at Fenway Park, but there's more than magic afoot, or afloat, in Ritter's life-affirming and tear-jerking new baseball novel. Ritter is a master at capturing the nuances of the game and infusing its magic into his tales. A surefire winner, full of energy and wonder."

About the Author

John H. Ritter lives in Koloa, Hawaii.

Product Details

• Age Range: 10 and up
  
• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Philomel (April 12, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399246657
• ISBN-13: 978-0399246654
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #389,138 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Novelist John H. Ritter (born October 31, 1951, in San Pedro, California) grew up in the summer-dry hills east of San Diego. "I grew up in a baseball family," says John. "But we were also a family of musicians and mathematicians, house painters and poets. My dad was a sports writer in Ashtabula, Ohio, who moved the family out west, just before I was born, to become Sports Editor for The San Diego Union."

Growing up in a sparse, mountainous region also helped stretch John's imagination. "Out in that country," he says, "there was a real sense of the spirits who walked the land in the centuries before. And being so cut off from other kids, I roamed the hills a lot, following hawks and eagles, climbing boulders, sitting in Indian caves. Rattlesnakes never bothered us much. But I felt the spirits everywhere. I think my mom, who was part Blackfoot Indian, had a lot to do with that."

When John was only four, however, his mother died of breast cancer, leaving his father to raise four small children on his own. John still recalls his mother and her songs. "One thing I remember about my mom is that she sang to us constantly, making up a song for each of her four children that fit our personalities perfectly. So from her, I got a sense of how to capture a person's spirit in a lyrical phrase."

Over time, his musical interests continued to grow and in high school, the social commentary of folksinger Bob Dylan inspired him to write his own songs, hoping to pursue a musical career. He was, however, a "wild student," he admits to English professor Chris Crowe in an interview for The ALAN Review, and was torn between his love of baseball and writing, calling himself both "a high achiever and a rabble rouser," noting, for example, that in 1969 he was voted Senior Class President and the Senior Class Clown. Teachers did, however, recognize his writing talent, although his work was so often read out loud in class that he also admits to growing complacent and somewhat lazy about having to improve his skills.

At the University of California, San Diego, John studied communications while playing for the UCSD baseball team, all-the-while continuing to write Dylan-style songs. But by his sophomore year, he recalls, "I was anxious to get on with my life. And for the vision I had in mind, college didn't have much to offer me. I knew I had to walk the streets, touch life, embrace life, gain experience." So like his literary heroes before him, i.e., Dylan, Jack Kerouac, and Mark Twain, John quit school, taking a job as a painter's apprentice, and set about traveling the country. He learned to live so cheaply that he could earn enough in three or four months to allow him to travel and write for the rest of the year. He did that for several years, until he married his wife, Cheryl, whom he had met in college, and they had a baby daughter. With a family to support, John needed to work nine months a year, painting houses, but the rest of his time went into writing, an artistic lifestyle he later spotlighted in his song-laden socio-political novel, Under the Baseball Moon.

In 1994, after publishing several short stories, John received the Judy Blume Award and a cash grant from the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) for a novel in progress. In 1996, he submitted his manuscript through the Curtis Brown Agency to Philomel Books where it became the first book-length acquisition of junior editor, Michael Green. Since then, Green has risen to become Editorial Director and Publisher of Philomel Books and has edited all six of John's novels.

In 1999, John's first novel, Choosing Up Sides, won the International Reading Association Children's Book Award for Older Readers and was designated an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults. The hard-hitting work of historical fiction, set in Southern Ohio, was praised by Kirkus Reviews as, "No ordinary baseball book, this is a rare first novel." Since then, John has published five more award-winning books and numerous short stories.

In 2004, he received the Paterson Prize for Children's Literature for his third novel, The Boy Who Saved Baseball. Cited in People Magazine as a book to read, "Now that the youngsters have read Harry Potter...", The Boy Who Saved Baseball also garnered a rave review in Publishers Weekly, which called the book's prose "Enthralling...at times stunning," and that, "Ritter delivers a baseball tale of legendary dimension."

According to Vicki Sherbert, writing in The ALAN Review, "Ritter uses the game of baseball, the glory of music, and the power of the written word to illustrate how young people can overcome everyday, and not-so-everyday, challenges. Each book goes beyond the story of the game, beyond the story of the problem, right to the heart of Ritter's message: What is really valuable in life?"

Literary scholar and essayist, Patty Campbell, also notes that, "Another aspect of John H. Ritter's writing that merits high praise is the variety and inventiveness of his language. Richly evocative metaphors gather layers of meaning as the stories unfold, and the verbal style of each novel is neatly crafted to the place and time of its setting. Under the Baseball Moon dances to a hip hop beachtown beat; Over the Wall wisecracks with a California kid's take on New York; The Boy Who Saved Baseball draws on both Spanish and English to make up zingy new expressions, and Choosing Up Sides savors the naiveté of the historic Appalachian dialect of southern Ohio. His settings, too, are vividly distinct and vary from the Hispanic/Anglo blend of his own Southern California hill communities to the "small town" neighborhoods of present day New York; from the eclectic oceanfront culture of the Pacific beach towns to the church-centered villages on the banks of the Ohio River during Prohibition."

John's fifth novel, The Desperado Who Stole Baseball, was a 2009 Jr. Library Guild selection and takes an historical look at the roots of racism in the Major Leagues. Set in the Wild West of the 1880s and written in the manner of a tall tale, Desperado is a prequel to The Boy Who Saved Baseball.

And coming soon (April 12, 2012) is John's sixth novel, Fenway Fever, also a Junior Library Guild selection and a book his publisher describes as "another magical novel that celebrates teamwork--and the innate power to heal that even the least among us is born with." New York Times bestselling author Peter Abrahams called Fenway Fever, "A funny, exciting, original, and heartwarming novel."

"In all of these wonderful novels," writes Patty Campbell, "John H. Ritter steps up to the plate and hits a home run for teen reading with books that are fun to read, fun to discuss, and important in the difficult process of growing up to be an ethical human being."

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Catch Fenway Fever! April 14, 2012

By Sue Cowing

Format:Hardcover

You should read FENWAY FEVER if:
--you believe, or fear, that the world as we know it is coming to an end in 2012 and there's nothing we can do about it (read it sooner rather than later).
--you love a storyteller who knows that the more serious the theme and circumstances of a story, the more touches of humor, word play, and light-ness of heart are called for in the telling.
--you can't resist characters with names like Billee Orbit and "Stats" Pagano, because you have a hunch they'll warm your heart and change your mind.
--you love language.
--you love the childhood game of baseball, cherishing every detail: the places, the players, the stats, the history, the atmosphere, the play-by-play.
--or, like me, you dreaded your turn at bat growing up, but have nevertheless followed John H. Ritter back out into the ball yard in his previous novels, unable to put them down, because he not only writes masterfully about baseball but connects it to just about everything else that matters.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Thumbs up!👍 November 23, 2012

By Philippe Hartley

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

My 11 year old son enjoyed the book... Not easy to get him a good read, but he loves baseball, and this book was thoroughly enjoyable.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Hits it out of the park July 4, 2012

By Debbie Duncan

Format:Hardcover

The best sports novels don't require an intimate knowledge of the specific sport, because they are really about life. In fact, "Fenway Fever" might confuse young people especially knowledgeable about the 2012 Red Sox, as this is a fictional team led by eccentric pitcher Billee Orbitt, supposedly playing for Boston during Fenway Park's 100th anniversary year. Billee's #1 fan is 12-year-old "Stats" Pagano, a small-statured statistical genius who lives for his beloved Sox. Stats's family runs a hot dog stand outside the park, but Pops is in danger of having to sell the business to pay old medical bills. Billee is also in trouble. Has the Curse, the legendary bad energy, returned to Fenway? Can Stats and Billee's summer solstice mission restore balance to the park?

The friendship between Stats and Billee, two characters "who are only just sort of normal and also sort of weird," is fanciful and touching. Pops's relationship with his sons, Stats and 15-year-old shortstop phenom Mark, is completely realistic. And the ending of "Fenway Fever" will warm anyone's heart, even a Yankee fan's.

(A version of this review appeared in the "Palo Alto Weekly.")