Monday, June 23, 2008

Six Innings by James Preller

Sam Reiser's bed was pushed against a second-floor window that overlooked a stand of cherry trees.

The summary is hidden because it may contain spoilers. If you would like to read the full abstract, simply use your cursor to highlight the next few lines and the full abstract will magically appear.
Summary: Earl Grubb's Pool Supplies plays Northeast Gas & Electric in the Little League championship game, while Sam, who has cancer and is in a wheelchair, has to call the play-by-play instead of participating in the game.

Publisher: Feiwel and Friends; 143 pages

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

This book was so wonderful I wrote the author a fan letter:
Hi James Preller -
I'll never be able to drive by or ride my bike past a baseball diamond with a team practicing or playing and not think about Sam and Branden and Dylan and Mike...
Thanks for a fine and simple story -- I am a children's librarian and I have read children's books to children for almost 40 years. I blog about children's books at Anokaberry. I posted Six Innings just now and added a link to your website as well. I loved your book. I loved Uncle Jimmy and Carter -- "Carter stared at the photo, absorbing every detail. To him, it confirmed everything he had ever suspected. The world was not fair. Not even baseball." I marked many passages with post-its -- It is a library book, after all... I loved the note in the Acknowledgements -- "Much of the first draft of this book was written by hand in a spiral notebook in the Bethlehem Public Library in Delmar, New York..." I write a fan letter to an author every now and again. I do it to connect and to thank you for writing respectfully and finely for our young people. And to let you know that your story moved and inspired me. The fineness of your writing was perfection in this little book.

Anonymous said...

I also agree this is an engaging book. The rest of the title says it all: Six Innings: a Game in the Life. The Eva Perry Mock Newbery book club is currently devouring this one.

Anonymous said...

At first I thought, "Oh, my gosh. Are we going play by play through a whole baseball game?" and I expected to hate it. But, I didn't. By about the fourth inning, I actually cared who won and how. And the last chapter was really moving. So this was a keeper, but I would be careful who I recommend it to, because it's 150 pages of baseball stuff.

Genie Bishop said...

I have tried and tried to finish this book and I just can't. I like the characters and I like the way the author describes things but there is just to much baseball in the book. I even like the game of baseball but I get lost in what is happening because I don't understand the planning part of playing baseball. I have had to ask my husband what was going on just so I could keep going in parts of the book. So, I have to say I think the writing is good in the book, where I was clear on what was happening. I could feel the pain of the characters the way it was described in the book. The "Six Innings" isn't on my list as a possible Newbery contender.

Jocelyn said...

Defintely not on my list. I found myself skipping over the baseball parts to get to the rest of the actual story.

Teresa said...

A distinguished book and one I'm preparing to defend strongly for our discussion. The game is a character really, how each other character reacts to it and interacts with it.

I believe this book (even more so than Kevin Henkes' Bird Lake Moon) speaks eloquently of relationships in the lives of boys.

Jen said...

I read too far to only be reading baseball plays. I just can't do it.