Sports

Six Innings by James Preller


This is a great middle school sports read (baseball) with a subplot about a boy who cannot play anymore because he has osteosarcoma in his leg. Each chapter describes an inning in a championship Little League game – very suspenseful. My only complaint was the number of characters – it got a bit confusing. 

Ms. Baker

**Booklist starred**
Grades 5-8. Dishing up a rare example of a character-driven tale that is also suspenseful and exciting, the author of the Jigsaw Jones series chronicles a magnificent championship game between two Little League teams that is as much about the players as the plays. Most of the action takes place on the field, and Preller leverages his love of the game and his experience as a Little League manager and coach to capture the games rhythms, routine plays, surprises, strategic moves, and shifting momentum that characterize baseball at its best. At the same time, he illuminates the personalities of most of the participants, from the bench clown and the slugger with a burning desire to smash things to the weak infielder who, despite gnawing self-doubt, makes a crucial play, and the game announcer, a former star whose life has been derailed by bone cancer. The baseball-as-a-metaphor-for-life theme is present but, thankfully, not in a dominant way in this absorbing sports novel.

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