Keeping Score [Hardcover]

Linda Sue Park (Author)

Book Description

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

Both Maggie Fortini and her brother, Joey-Mick, were named for baseball great Joe DiMaggio. Unlike Joey-Mick, Maggie doesn’t play baseball—but at almost ten years old, she is a dyed-in-the-wool fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Maggie can recite all the players’ statistics and understands the subtleties of the game. Unfortunately, Jim Maine is a Giants fan, but it’s Jim who teaches Maggie the fine art of scoring a baseball game. Not only can she revisit every play of every inning, but by keeping score she feels she’s more than just a fan: she’s helping her team.
Jim is drafted into the army and sent to Korea, and although Maggie writes to him often, his silence is just one of a string of disappointments—being a Brooklyn Dodgers fan in the early 1950s meant season after season of near misses and year after year of dashed hopes. But Maggie goes on trying to help the Dodgers, and when she finds out that Jim needs help, too, she’s determined to provide it. Against a background of major league baseball and the Korean War on the home front, Maggie looks for, and finds, a way to make a difference.
Even those readers who think they don’t care about baseball will be drawn into the world of the true and ardent fan. Linda Sue Park’s captivating story will, of course, delight those who are already keeping score.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Park, author of the Newbery-winning A Single Shard (2001), opens this thoroughly researched novel in Brooklyn with the 1951 baseball season half gone. Nine-year-old Maggie likes to hang out at the fire station, where she listens to Dodgers games with the firemen. The new guy, Jim, teaches Maggie how to score a game, and after Jim is drafted and sent to Korea, Maggie writes him letters. When she learns that he has been traumatized and sent home unresponsive and unable to function on his own, Maggie works on a plan to bring Jim back to himself and his old life. To her credit, Park doesn’t make Maggie’s goal seem easy or even realistic. The involving story spans several years with only a glimmer of hope for Jim’s recovery. Still, readers will find plenty to root for as they get to know determined, persistent Maggie, who feels that the first words she ever learned must have been “Wait till next year.” Grades 4-7. --Carolyn Phelan

Review

"Although the jacket image shoes a girl at a baseball stadium, Newbery Medalist Park's (A Single Shard) Korean War-era novel is best approached not as a sports story but as a powerful attempt to grapple with loss. Margaret Olivia Fontini, named after Joe DiMaggio ("Maggie-o, get it?"), loves Brooklyn's beloved but doomed Dodgers with a passion. When a new fireman arrives at her father's station wearing his allegiance to the arch-enemy Giants on his sleeve, Maggie keeps her distance until he teachers her how to score the game, a practice Maggie embraces with gusto, believing that recording every pitch and play might actually help Dem Bums finally win. And when Jim is drafted and sent to Korea, he and Maggie write, until Jim's letters abruptly stop. Park evokes the characters and settings with her customary skill and talent for detail; she shows unusual sensitivity in writing about war and the atrocity that, Maggie learns, has traumatized Jim into silence. Readers will be moved by Maggie's hard earned revelation, that every instance of keeping score "had been a chance to hope for something good to happen," and that "hope always comes first."--Publishers Weekly, starred review


"In 1950s Brooklyn, everyone is baseball mad. Maggie says daily prayers and follows careful rituals to "help" the Dodgers. She listens intently to games on the radio, often with her friends at the firehouse. With firefighter Jim's help, even if he is a Giants fan, she learns to score the games meticulously. Jim is drafted and sent to Korea, where his experiences lead to a severe breakdown. Maggie writes to Jim faithfully, scores Giants games for him and says heartfelt prayers for his recovery. But her efforts meet with little success. She is disillusioned and heartbroken by the war, by Jim's inability to cope and by the constant disappointments provided by the Dodgers. But she never completely gives up, and there is a ray of hope for both Jim and the Dodgers as the 1955 season begins. Park's deeply layered plot is built as slowly and as meticulously as Maggie's scoring. As Maggie matures from age nine to 13, she never loses her compassion and openhearted nature. An author's note adds historical information. A winner at every level."--Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"In 1951, Maggie, nine, and her older brother, Joey-Mick, are dedicated baseball fans though their beloved Brooklyn Dodgers always disappoint them at season's end. Maggie enjoys listening to the games with the firefighters in her neighborhood station; her dad worked there before an injury forced him to accept a desk job. When a new firefighter, Jim, joins the crew, he teaches Maggie how to keep score and she comes to share his admiration for Giants' great Willie Mays. Then Jim is drafted and sent to Korea. They writer to one another until his letters abruptly stop. Maggie, frustrated and worried, tries to understand the conflict by researching it at her local library and even drawing her own maps tracing the war's progress on the Korean peninsula. Eventually, she learns that Jim suffered traumatic shock after a horrific battle and has been sent home with a medical discharge. Park paints a vividly detailed account of life in 1950s Brooklyn. Maggie's perspective is authentically childlike and engaging, and her relations with her family and friends ring true. Jim's tragic experience raises difficult, troubling questions for Maggie, but her grief eventually brings her to the conclusion that "hope is what gets everything started." Baseball fans will savor her first visit to Ebbets Fields, but this finely crafted novel should resonate with a wide audience of readers.."--School Library Journal

"Park, author of the Newbery-winning A Single Shard (2001), opens this thoroughly researched novel in Brooklyn with the 1951 baseball season half gone. Nine-year-old Maggie likes to hang out at the fire station, where she listens to the Dodger games with the firemen. The new guy, Jim, teaches Maggie how to score a game, and after Jim is drafted and sent to Korea, Maggie writes him letters. When she learns that he has been traumatized and sent home unresponsive and unable to function on his own, Maggie works on a plan to bring Jim back to himself and his own life. To her credit, Park doesn't make Maggie's goal seem easy or even realistic. The involving story spans several years with only a glimmer of hope for Jim's recovery. Still, readers will find plenty to root for as they get to know determined, persistent Maggie, who feels that the first words she ever learned must have been "Wait till next year."--Booklist

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9 and up
  
• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Clarion Books; None edition (March 17, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618927999
• ISBN-13: 978-0618927999
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #402,618 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Linda Sue Park is the author of the Newbery Medal book A Single Shard, many other novels, several picture books, and most recently a book of poetry: Tap Dancing on the Roof: Sijo (Poems). She lives in Rochester, New York, with her family, and is now a devoted fan of the New York Mets. For more infromation visit www.lspark.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars RICK "SHAQ" GOLDSTEIN SAYS: "NO AGE RESTRICTIONS FOR THIS BEAUTIFUL GAME OF LIFE!", March 31, 2008

By 

Rick Shaq Goldstein "*SHAQ*" (Danville, Ca, USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Keeping Score (Hardcover)

This heartfelt, endearing, nostalgic and educational tale is set in Brooklyn, New York in July 1951. The main character is Maggie Fortini who is nine going on ten years-old. She is known to everyone as Maggie-o and her older brother is known as Joey-Mick, both being named after their Father's favorite New York Yankee Joe DiMaggio. But here's the "rub": Maggie-o, Joey-Mick, and their Mom, absolutely love and "live-and die" with the Brooklyn Dodgers! "DEM BUMS" as all Brooklyn fans affectionately called their beloved Dodgers, were the center of their lives. Their entire neighborhood regardless of race, creed, color, or sex, shared their mutual love of the Dodgers in the same manner as "O-positive" blood was a universal donor in an emergency room. Whenever there was a Dodger game being played, the radio in Maggie-o's house was always turned on with Red Barber (and later on Vince Scully) providing the play by play with such favorite phrases as: "a can of corn" for an easy pop fly, and "sitting in the catbird's seat" when "DEM BUMS" had a good lead. It was an unspoken rule in the house that if Mr. Fortini wanted to listen to a big Yankee game he had to go somewhere else. If Maggie-o had to leave the house to go to school, or go to the store, or go to the firehouse, while a game was on, she never missed a pitch as long as she was in the neighborhood. Every house and every store she passed had the Dodger game on and it was like stereo coming from all the windows.

Maggie-o's Father had been a fireman until he suffered a bad leg injury fighting a fire. Now he worked in an administrative position at another location. His old firehouse was just down the block and Maggie-o spent countless hours there with the firemen and their dog Chalky. During baseball season the men would sit outside and listen to the Dodger games and Maggie-o would always join them when she wasn't in school. There was nothing but Dodger fans at the firehouse until one day there was a new recruit named Jim Maine who was a Giant fan. The other firemen wouldn't let Jim listen to the Giant games loud, so at times he would lay on the floor next to his radio. Maggie-o befriended Jim or it could just have easily been the other way around, and before you knew it, Jim was teaching Maggie-o the official way to keep play-by-play score of a baseball game. Maggie-o started keeping "official" scorecards of every inning of every game when she wasn't in school. Jim even taught her how to keep track of every ball and every strike, even differentiating between called strikes and swinging strikes.

This was the point in time of the Korean War/Conflict, and bad news hit the firehouse when Jim received his draft notice and had to report for active duty. Maggie-o immediately started writing letters, even before his ship crossed the ocean to Korea. Jim started writing back for awhile, and then all of a sudden he stopped. Maggie-o was distraught and couldn't find out why Jim had stopped writing. She then put as much effort into learning everything about the Korean Conflict (It hadn't been officially classified as a war yet) as she did into learning how to keep official score. I must admit I learned things about the Korean War that I didn't know based on Maggie-o's maps and footnotes. During this gloomy time in Maggie-o's life, she became extra diligent in her scorekeeping in honor of Jim. She even prayed harder, and without giving away a major part of the story, I'll suffice to say that she even convinced herself to commit the biggest sin in Brooklyn, by secretly rooting one year for the HATED Giants to win, because she hoped and prayed that would help Jim.

According to the promotional information regarding the release of this book, it is supposedly geared for children aged 9-12 years old. I am a Grandfather, who is originally from Brooklyn, and my entire family was born with the Dodger's as the very blood that pumped through our veins, and this story is so realistic in every way. The pedestal that Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider, Gil Hodges, Pee Wee Reese, Roy Campanella, Carl Furillo and Maggie-o's Mother's favorite pitcher that "fine young Mr. Labine", and the other bums were put on, was portrayed as true as life! I actually had tears come down my face a number of times. Some of the tears were because I got to go back and relive some of my fondest childhood memories by living through Maggie-o's beautiful Brooklyn Dodger loving eyes. My parents are long gone, but this story brought my families most cherished times to life again in my heart because of this author's beautiful (And for my family accurate) story telling. Other tears were because of the many sorrow's that are an awful by product of war. This is a wonderful, wonderful, book that would make a great "Hallmark Hall Of Fame" type movie that would be enjoyed by entire generations of a family.

As far as my tears; Maggie-o said it best on page 179: "MAGGIE BLINKED SEVERAL TIMES, HARD. THERE WASN'T ANY WAY TO STOP TEARS FROM FILLING YOUR EYES ONCE THEY HAD DECIDED TO DO IT. YOU COULD BLINK THEM AWAY, BUT ONLY AFTER THEY WERE ALREADY THERE."

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Courtesy of Teens Read Too, March 7, 2008

By 

TeensReadToo "Eat. Drink. Read. Be Merrier." (All Over the US & Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Keeping Score (Hardcover)

For the first half of this book, I thought the title referred specifically to the protagonist, Maggie, learning how to score a baseball game. It's 1951, Maggie is a huge Brooklyn Dodgers fan, and baseball is central to her life. She learns how to score a game when her dad's firehouse colleague teaches her.

I admit I find it frustrating that Maggie has no real desire to learn to play baseball herself. There is a brief mention of the strides that women had made with the game, including the women's league that existed during World War II, but Maggie is content to be a fan. Not that there is anything wrong with fandom, but it is energy that seems misplaced in a story about a spunky, outgoing, full-of-life girl with baseball on the brain.

The conflict finally arises when Jim, the fireman who took Maggie under his wing and taught her how to score, is drafted to Korea. At first, Maggie and Jim write letters back and forth. Then Jim's letters stop coming. Maggie is hurt and confused that her friend no longer seems to appreciate her letters.

When Maggie's father finally breaks the news that the reason Jim hasn't written is because he is at home in a catatonic state after witnessing something very bad in Korea, Maggie begins brainstorming ways that she can help make Jim "better."

First, she keeps score of his team, the New York Giants, who are rivals of her beloved Brooklyn. Then she tries prayer, also to no avail. Then she comes up with an idea that is so precious and selfless that I won't spoil it by recounting it here. But I will say that the idea is the heart of the book, and it's a shame that it took half of the story to get there.

KEEPING SCORE starts out as a story about a girl learning to score a baseball game. By the time it ends, Maggie finds herself keeping score of her own efforts to help her friend. While the adults around her realize that there is nothing she can do to help Jim, and that his illness isn't her fault, this lesson never really hits home for Maggie. She continues to accept responsibility for Jim's struggle. However, though misguided as Maggie may be at times, she is also selfless, kind, and caring. She is a dutiful daughter who not only respects her parents, but has a real affection for them. She certainly has at her core the idea that it is better to help others than to help yourself.

The story weaves in some interesting facts and information about the Korean War that will help kids better understand a time in our history. It definitely will lead readers to contract baseball fever. And, it ends with some helpful websites that readers can visit to learn to score baseball games on their own.

Reviewed by: Marie Robinson

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Home Run!, February 20, 2008

By 

L. K. Messner "Kate Messner" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Keeping Score (Hardcover)

Keeping Score is the very best kind of historical novel - one that first introduces kids to funny, dynamic characters they'll love and then brings in historical elements that are so much more meaningful as they affect the lives of those characters.

Ten-year-old Maggie Fortini loves the Brooklyn Dodgers. Loves them with a big, fat capital L. When Jim, a pal at her dad's firehouse, teaches her how to keep score, she finds a way to be an even better fan and believes she's helping the team when she keeps track of every play. But as Maggie cheers the Dodgers in the early 1950s, the Korean conflict rages overseas. The war that isn't called a war comes crashing into Maggie's life.

Knowing Park's work, knowing that she's a Newbery Medalist, I expected this book to be fantastic. Still, there were some passages that took my breath away, some that made me cry, and some that made me feel like I'm missing out on something spiritual because I'm not much of a baseball fan. Readers will feel like they've moved right into 1950s Brooklyn.

Keeping Score does for the Korean War what Gary Schmidt's The Wednesday Wars does for Vietnam - contextualizes it through a funny, poignant story of life on the home front, told from a young person's point of view.

This is a perfect book for baseball fans,but you don't have to be a baseball fan to love this one. Like so many great kids' books, baseball may be the hook, but there's so much more here.

Keeping Score is full of colorful characters, like George at the firehouse, who shares his roast beef sandwiches with Maggie, her dad, who worries about crowd control, and her mom, who prays for the Dodgers while she knits. It's about baseball, but it's also about family and friends and war. Most, though, Keeping Score is about holding on to hope - something that old-time Dodgers fans knew all about.