Customer Reviews

Six Innings

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I read Six Innings with my sixth grader, who can't wait for baseball season to start each spring. We absolutely loved it!

This book is wonderful on so many levels. James Preller captures the game of baseball and all that it means to kids (and adults). But it's not just a book about baseball. It's about being a kid. It's about being part of a team. It's about being a friend.

Six Innings is the story of two close friends, Sam and Mike, and the ups and downs of their friendship, their families, their lives. Their story, like the stories of the rest of the little leaguers in the book, is revealed pitch by pitch, half-inning by half-inning, as a dramatic championship game is played.

The baseball action is entertaining, realistic, and filled with the twists and turns that come with the game. Young readers will identify with the authentic characters and dialogue. If kids don't recognize themselves somewhere in this book, then they'll recognize kids they know. Don't think that this is "just a baseball book" though - it is so much more. The depth of the story beyond the game and the challenges the kids face off the field will completely draw you in, too.

Should be required reading at little league diamonds around the country this spring!

Six Innings by James Preller is just that, the play by play description of six innings of a Little League baseball game. All of our nation's obsession with the sanctity of the game is concentrated in this afternoon of play by two teams of boys. The book opens in Sam Reiser's bedroom, where he is lying in bed, a young amputee now only able to announce his team's play, to speak the words for actions he can no longer perform. We think we are in for a problem novel, a book about adjusting to a handicap. Then the innings begin, and we realize that Preller has found the perfect dramatic structure in which he can write about twenty-four different boys in depth, each member of the team. Using the inexorable action of the six innings, he delineates the interplay of personalities, abilities, the age of the players and their temperaments. The hopelessness of young Patrick Wong in outfield, praying the ball won't go to him, vowing never to play again after his last humiliating strike out, is compared to the hard throwing pitcher, who already shows signs of a moustache. Although everyone cares deeply and intensely, the action is balanced by the humor of the identical twins, the serious one, Eamon Sweeney, and the leftie, Colin Sweeney, referred to by their coach as the Right Sweeney and the Wrong Sweeney and the attitude of the coaches themselves. In a tense moment, a coach takes his team aside and urges them to "Have fun." Six Innings has a lingering effect, the way baseball does, its pace subtle, leaving the lingering promise of summer.

It's the kind of book that. when I got to the end of it, I didn't even know was meant for kids. I went on vacation and brought this book, not ecven glancing at the jacket copy that suggests it was meant for 11 to 13 year olds. I did think that the language of its rambunctious Little Leaguers was a bit on the sanitized side. The boys love to stage impromptu contests involving dialogue from their favorite baseball movies, everything from THE BAD NEWS BEARS to FIELD OF DREAMS, and evcen the mildest of these has dialogue racier than anything you'll find in James Preller's novel. So that might have tipped me off, but what do I know! I would definitely recommend it to adults.

The emotionally involving parts of the story take place during rhw championship game between Earl Grubb's Pool Supplies and NE Gas & Electric. The boy who does the scorekeeping for EGPS has a rare disease which has resulted in benching his once promising career at bat, but does he cry or whimper? Well, you'll have to see for yourself. At the other end of the spectrum is the boy who, while enjoying himself at baseball, has now found himself interested in other things, and today might be his very last day playing in organized sport. What a range of players, some with comic subplots, some with underdeveloped storylines, but most of them genuine individuals. The only defect in the story is Preller's working up the actual game pictured in "Six Innings," which is made up of one classic play after another, each one more spectacular than the last, and each reminiscent of a famous major league moment, so it's a bit unbelievable these ordinary kids would wind up in a game this exciting, but hear that whistle? It's time to -- play ball.

The book gives a play-by-play account of a Little League final match: "Earl Grubb's Pool Supplies" faces "Northeast Gas & Electric" and its intimidating star pitcher Nick Clemente. It's an exciting match, filled with tension, excellent plays and some errors too.

However, interspersed with the six innings of the game, we get glimpses into the boys' thoughts and stories, focusing on the Pool Supplies team. We get to know them and cheer for them as they take on their tough rivals.

This is a novel that any sports fan will enjoy. There's a lot of baseball, obviously, but there's also friendship, real life problems, teamwork and good-natured fun.

It's a rather short novel, but an enjoyable one.

This is one of the best juvenile sports books every written and it is all based on one six inning game. It is the championship game between Earl Grubb's Pool Supplies and Northeast Gas & Electric and Sam Reiser is the announcer in the booth. Like nearly all little league games, the players know each other very well, in some cases best friends are on opposite sides of the diamond. The rules state that every member of the team must play and of course some are much better than others. For some of the players, this will be the last and best game of their lives, even though they are terrified of having to make a play.
The story is a batter-by-batter description of each plate appearance seasoned with background on the player. One boy's father was a policeman shot and killed in the line of duty, another is jealous of his athletic sister that has been the center of attention and Sam the announcer is being treated for bone cancer. While these sidebars are part of the action, in general the players are living for the moment, doing all they can to bring a win to their team.
It is an exciting and tense story; it comes down to the last out of the game with the winning run on base. The boys are what you will find in any collection of boys, they range from the clowns to those that are dead serious about the game. This is a book that is hard to put down because it is all about the excitement of the event, not really about who wins and loses. It is a description of how little league baseball should be played and coached.

The product arrived very quickly and was exactly as advertised. I would recommend this seller.

I am not just saying that because my son is one of the characters in this book, I genuinely thought James did an amazing job at not only capturing the hearts and minds of little leaguers, but the trials and tribulations that they go through on a day to day basis.
Speaking on a personal note~ At one of our sons baseball games, James told me that my son Tyler was going to be a character in this book. Not believing what I heard, I excitedly waited for the book to come out. When it did, I had tears in my eyes, as James nailed Tyler to a Tee, as well as every other character he depicted in this book.
It truly takes a special author and person to spend the amount of time he did with these boys, and come up with an incredible story line!
Kudos to James Preller!!

Tricia~ Delmar, NY

My 9 yr old son who struggles academically LOVED this book.
When he was done he came to me and asked if I would get him more books like this one because he, "liked it better than his other books".
I haven't read it so I don't know exactly what he meant.
For him to enjoy reading is huge!
He is a Red Sox fan and plays baseball. Maybe that had something to do with it?

I got a vivid picture of the action in the Little League championship game. It brought back great memories of when my kids played.

Nice job.

Sure, the easy title for a baseball book, but in this case so true.

"Six Innings" is the rarity, the book that hooks both teenagers and adults. A baseball book, but not just for baseball fans. A sports book with real human interest, and (hey, more importantly, let's not forget what this is) real compelling baseball.

A book about kids that reminds us what kids are really like.

Prellers gift is twofold: he knows the game of baseball and how to communicate it and he still remembers vividly what it is like to be young and how kids feel and behave.

Recommended to everyone who is Little League age, or ever has been.