Mudville [Hardcover]

Kurtis Scaletta (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 24, 2009 | Age Level: 9 and up | Grade Level: 4 and up

Welcome to Moundville, where it’s been raining for longer than Roy McGuire has been alive. Most people say the town is cursed—right in the middle of their big baseball game against rival town Sinister Bend, black clouds crept across the sky and it started to rain. That was 22 years ago . . . and it’s still pouring.

Baseball camp is over, and Roy knows he’s in for a dreary, soggy summer. But when he returns home, he finds a foster kid named Sturgis sprawled out on his couch. As if this isn’t weird enough, just a few days after Sturgis’s arrival, the sun comes out. No one can explain why the rain has finally stopped, but as far as Roy’s concerned, it’s time to play some baseball. It’s time to get a Moundville team together and finish what was started 22 years ago. It’s time for a rematch.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 6–8—Vandals have crossed off the "o" and the "n" from the welcome sign outside the town of Moundville, and appropriately so, as it's been raining there continually for 22 years. Shortly after 12-year-old Roy discovers that he'll be sharing his bedroom with Sturgis, a scarred foster child about his age, the rain stops. What better opportunity to organize some baseball? In short order Roy finds himself captaining a ragtag team with himself as catcher, Sturgis—who has a wicked fastball—on the mound, and position players of both sexes with wildly varying levels of skill. Scaletta takes nearly 80 pages to trot out his varied, well-drawn supporting cast and to fill in the town's history (a necessity: that rain interrupted an important baseball game that some adults, at least, still regard as unfinished business), but he balances perceptive explorations of personal and domestic issues perfectly with fine baseball talk and (eventually) absorbing play-by-play. Readers will cheer Roy on as he struggles to get his team in shape, clicks with a girl who is new to the game but turns out to have an unhittable natural screwball, and weathers some rough waters with moody Sturgis on the way to a rousing climax and a fitting resolution.—John Peters, New York Public Library
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Library Binding edition.

From Booklist

Those who don’t know an RBI from an ERA should look elsewhere, but for readers who eat and sleep sports, Scaletta’s debut is a gift from the baseball gods. It centers on 12-year-old Roy McGuire, whose dreams of being a major leaguer are literally dampened by the fact that it has been raining in his hometown for 22 years. The rain began during a contest with neighboring Sinister Bend, and it ends right after Roy returns from baseball camp to find a new foster brother, Sturgis, living at his house. Their relationship is rocky, but no one can deny Sturgis’ throwing power, and soon both boys are ramping up for an epic rematch between the two towns. Various asides and in-jokes make clear that Scaletta is steeped not only in baseball lore but in such movie classics as The Natural and Field of Dreams, and that sort of larger-than-life magic realism lends his story the aura of a proper tall tale. Sports nuts, including reluctant readers, will sense they are in good hands with this one. Grades 4-8. --Daniel Kraus

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9 and up
  
• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers (February 24, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375855793
• ISBN-13: 978-0375855795
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 1 x 8.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,130,966 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Kurtis Scaletta is the author of several books for young readers including Mudville, which was short listed for the Mark Twain Readers Award, and The Tanglewood Terror, which was a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award. He lives in Minneapolis with wife and son and some cats.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A non-sports fan's opinion, February 28, 2009

By 

Brandy L. Danner (Cambridge, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mudville (Hardcover)

It's a rare book that makes me want to play baseball. This book really captures everything about the game--the author clearly loves the game, and it infuses every bit of every character. The rivalries, the importance of the game to this sodden town, the cultural and personal heritages caught up with baseball... every page of this book is a mash note to the sport, and I mean that in a good way.

It's not all baseball, though--there's a family story here, brotherhood and parents and general familial relationships to each other. It could be very sappy, but none of the characters are perfect--they're all flawed in their individual ways, giving even the characters with little screen time or deep importance to the plot dimension and earning them sympathy. It would be easy to give some of these characters no redeeming qualities, but Scaletta tempers the bad and/or neglectful behaviors with hints that these parents do love their children--they just can't be good parents, for whatever reason. Their flaws make them human.

This is a sports book that interested me, even though I, the terminally graceless and uncoordinated, have no interest in sports, particularly baseball. I still don't fully understand in words what makes the game so great--but on a gut level, I think I understand it perfectly.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Buy This Book!, February 24, 2009

By 

Saundra Mitchell (Indiana, USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Mudville (Hardcover)

It's About: Roy McGuire, twelve years old, just back from baseball camp, and back into the endlessly dreary town of Moundville- where it rained out a baseball game twenty-two years ago and hasn't stopped since. Most people in Moundville make do. Roy's dad has made good- he had his defining moment during that rained-out game, and ever since, he's been rainproofing houses in waterlogged houses for a living and caring for Roy, while Roy's estranged mother gallivants around the world, sending home the occasional postcard.

When Roy returns from camp to find his father has taken in a foster kid, Sturgis, Roy isn't quite sure what to think. Sturgis likes his dad's bizarre culinary palate, manages to work twice as hard in the rainproofing business as he does, and even turns out to be a better baseball player. And a few days after he arrives in Moundville, the epic rain stops.

The sun shines for the first time in two decades, and Roy- with the help of his friends- set about building a baseball field. And once there's a field- well, it's time to finish that game against Sinister Bend that got rained out all those years ago. The only problem is, Sturgis- Moundville's star pitcher- plans to pitch for the other team.

Populated with a unique cast of characters (including a kid whose only English phrase is Search Me, and thus, becomes known as Google,) Mudville is a story that contains baseball for sure, but it's not about baseball. (And when it is, Scaletta does a brilliant job of illuminating the arcane art of junkballs and line drives, so the unfamiliar reader never feels lost.)

Scaletta mingles the spirit of classic fables and tall tales, local mythology, and baseball legend with a very human story about belonging. Roy is a sensitive, thoughtful protagonist who still isn't above petty jealousy, and Sturgis is a fascinating foil- not exactly an antagonist, but definitely the catalyst.

And it's an especially refreshing novel about boys that isn't hardbound in scatalogical humor (the only gross-outs come in the form of the unusual dinners Roy's dad prepares- spam manicotti, anyone?) that allows its boys to be smart, strong and competitive, without letting them lapse into edgy, feral territory.

There's real affection between the boys and Roy's father, and the boys with each other- and that human connection, set against the backdrop of America's past-time, makes this book feel utterly classic.

Would I Give This Book to a Kid: Absolutely- and not just to boys, or baseball fans. I really think girls will find the friendship between Roy and Sturgis touching, and will enjoy seeing Rita and Shannon playing with the guys, competitively, as valuable members of the team.

Would I Give This Book to an Adult: I would. In fact, I plan to give it to my mother. Her tastes run more toward The Natural than Bull Durham, and I think Mudville hits that spot exactly.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars MiniMo's thought, March 25, 2009

By 

Readers in Las Kato "K and S" (Southern MN, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mudville (Hardcover)

I am ten, and my favorite thing about this book is that it had a good plot and it had suspense. It also had great characters. The setting was amazing. The last 25 pages are the best part of the book because it's the big game. I recommend this book to other readers who like sports. It's kind of like Tim Green's FOOTBALL GENIUS, another book I really liked.