Striking Out [Mass Market Paperback]

Will Weaver (Author), Michael Koelsch (Illustrator)

Book Description

Age Level: 11 and up | Grade Level: 6 and up

Up until now, Billy Baggs's life has been loaded with nevers. Never been to a movie. Never played baseball with a real team. Never got over feeling guilty for the loss of his brother. But change is in the air. Billy discovers he has a natural talent for baseball, especially as a pitcher. Maybe, just maybe, there's more in store for him than life on the farm. But can Billy convince his father of that? Or is he destined to spend the rest of his life pitching nothing but hay?Teenager Billy Baggs is desperately needed on his family's struggling dairy farm, but he's also an extraordinarily gifted natural baseball player. How he struggles to reconcile his father's desire to keep him on the farm with his coach's interest in getting him on the field is at the heart of this ‘meaty story.… The complex characters grow and change in profoundly real ways.''K. ‘[With] flashes of humor, a wealth of lovingly recounted details evokes the difficult daily life on a small dairy farm.''Publishers Weekly.

1994 Best Books for Young Adults (ALA)
1994 Books for the Teen Age (NY Public Library)
1993 "Pick of the Lists" (ABA)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this story of a 13-year-old Minnesota boy's adjustment to a hardscrabble existence, PW found "a wealth of lovingly recounted details" and "flashes of humor [that] serve as relief." Ages 10-up.
- serve as relief." Ages 10-up.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Grade 8-12-This novel opens with a rather grisly description of the death of Billy Baggs's older brother in a tractor accident. The action quickly shifts to five years later, when 13-year-old Billy is still wrestling with guilt over Robert's death. An opportunity to play summer baseball offers him some hope of regaining the equilibrium in his life, but his family's numbing rural poverty and his parents' own failure to come to grips with their son's death present further obstacles. This is not strictly a sports book, as other threads in the plot involve a pair of sexy farm sisters and accusations of rape; the beginnings of independence for Mrs. Baggs; and Billy's friendship with a slightly loony member of the baseball team. Unfortunately, not all of these threads come together at the end, and one gets the feeling that either a sequel is in the works or that Weaver tried to stuff too much into an already long text. The author also gets a few details wrong-Dodgers pitcher Sandy Koufax had already been retired for four years in 1970, but appears on the covers of all the sports magazines. The strongest parts of the story involve the gritty, unromantic descriptions of farm life, and the honest depiction of the deep emotions of the major characters. This depth of feeling makes readers really care about the family, and is probably enough to make this uneven and unruly book worth a purchase.
Todd Morning, Schaumburg Township Public Library, IL
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 11 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: HarperTeen (December 16, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0064471136
• ISBN-13: 978-0064471138
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #933,392 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Striking Out" Review by Adam Wasilewski, July 12, 2000

By 

Christian Kozlowski - See all my reviews

This review is from: Striking Out (Mass Market Paperback)

I recommend this book to anyone who loves baseball and is 13 years old and up. I think it a great and interesting book because it has a good description of life on a poor farm in the 1970's. For example, "Besides, who else is gonna help me buck bales?" Abner said. "We can't afford to go out and pay nobody." When the coach talked to Billy, he said, "You ever think about playing summer baseball?" "Some kids got to work in the summer," Billy said. I wanted to keep reading to see if Abner will allow Billy to go town. In conclusion, if you are interested in baseball books, read this awesome book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars If you like Baseball you must read this Book, October 29, 2004

By 

a student (Versailles, OH USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Striking Out (Mass Market Paperback)

A boy and his brother live on a farm with their parents in a small town. One day the main character goes and works in a field on their farm. His little brother wants to join him so he comes and gets on the tractor with his older brother. The little boy wants to drive but his older brother won't let him so he tries anyway. He falls backwards off of the tractor and dies because he gets tore up in a plow. A while later the boy goes to a baseball diamond that's near his house. He finds other boys about his age playing and thats when he falls in love with baseball. Some things I liked about the book was that it starts right off with action when the boy is thrown from the tractor. Some things I didn't like were that the story is not totally focused on baseball right from the start like I was hoping, but that isn't such a bad thing and that is why I gave it a four-star.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "The action/baseball book of the year!", March 23, 2001

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Striking Out (Mass Market Paperback)

This was definitely one of the best books of the year. It's about a little boy and how he has a lot of nevers in his life and finally gets the chance to play baseball in a league. He and Heather have a fine relationship. If you know what I mean. Overall this was a fantastic book!