Call Me! Telephone by Mac Barnett

"TELL PETER: FLY HOME FOR DINNER!"

Mama Bird is ready to put her home-cooked dinner, a delicious-looking worm pot pie, on the table. All she needs is to get Peter in to wash up and dinner will be served.

The Cardinal she chooses to be the message bearer has his baseball bat over his shoulder and obviously has his head in the game. He relays the message, just a bit scrambled, to a passing goggles-wearing goose.

"TELL PETER: HIT POP FLIES AND HOMERS."

Goose gives the message an aviatorial interpretation.

"TELL PETER: PROP PLANES ARE FOR FLIERS."

Unfortunately, the recipient of the communication is struggling with a late load of laundry to hang on the line, and she's clearly riding another plane of thought. She passes the word on with a wet-wash twist.

"TELL PETER: PUT YOUR WET SOCKS IN THE DRYER."

Will Peter get home before the worm pot pie is a leftover? Will he fly home before the owls come out and think that Peter is supposed to be THEIR dinner?

In Mac Barnett's newest, Telephone (Chronicle Books, 2014), it seems that just because a bunch of birds are sitting on the telephone lines, they are not necessarily the best of communicators. A master of the comic twist picture book, Barnett takes the trope of the traditional game of "Telephone" or "Gossip" and gives it his own quirky spin, giving kids a chance to predict how the message with change from the nature of the birds who relay the message. As usual with this game, the final message is a hilarious mishmash, ably illustrated by artist Jen Corace's comic communicators.

Other kid-pleasing books by Mac Barnett include Extra Yarn, Chloe and the Lion, Sam and Dave Dig a Hole and Oh No!: Or How My Science Project Destroyed the World.

Get Your Head In The Game! Knuckleball Ned by R. A. Dickey

FOR AS LONG AS HE COULD REMEMBER, NED WOBBLED.

IN THE KITCHEN HE BUMPED INTO THE REFRIGERATOR, AND HIS MOM ASKED "ARE YOU NERVOUS ABOUT THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL?"

No doubt about it, though, Ned is an oddball.

He jiggles and wiggles and weebles and wobbles as he weaves his way down the aisle at school to his desk.

All the other "ball boys" give him the same sort of looks an umpire gives a catcher who steps on his toes. Fletcher and Fiona Fastball grab for their pencils and rulers, and Connie Curveball hangs onto her protractor and compass. Sid Slider slides everything under his seat. The only one who doesn't give him the look is Sammy Softball, who has his own problems, being a bit too round to soar through the door. They all know who they are, but they don't know what to make of nervous Ned.

And then the Foul Ball Gang, a scruffy, scraggly gang of outsiders, roll in and get a look at the new kid. Who better to bully than that oddball Ned? One of the long Foul Balls grabs Ned's new sneakers and tosses them up into a tree.

The others are bemused, but a fair bunch pitch in to help. Fiona and Fletcher aim themselves straight and fast at the dangling shoes. Connie makes a more circuitous throw, but the shoes stay put. It's up to Ned, and he gives it his best shot:

"I CAN DO IT!"

Fluttering and weaving through the branches, Ned hits the sweet spot and the sneakers come down!

Connie Curveball cheers!

"YOU'RE A KNUCKLEBALL! I KNOW ABOUT BALLS LIKE YOU!"

Ned now knows why he's the way he is: he's Knuckleball Ned.

Who else but major league baseball's only knuckleball pitcher, R. A. Dickey, could have written a parable about that peculiar pitch, in his new Knuckleball Ned (Dial Press, 2014). Comic artist Tim Bowers' illustrations will keep young readers in stitches, and Dickey's playful premise shows that it takes all kinds and a variety of pitches, sometimes one with different moves, to make a winning team.

Crack of the Bat! The Philly Fake (Ballpark Mysteries) by David A. Kelly

Poodle McGuire, the Phillies' tough little shortstop, stepped up to the plate. He was famous for making big hits just when the team needed them.

"Come on, Poodles!" Kate yelled.  Mike whistled.

When the second pitch came in, Poodles swung with all his might.

POW!

The ball blasted off the bat! Home run!

Mike and Kate are seeing red--and white--and blue--everywhere.  It's almost Independence Day and Kate's sportswriter mom is covering the Fourth of July series between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Mets. History is all around, from Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, to the Betsy Ross House, not to mention America's oldest ballpark.  A Ben Franklin reenactor works the crowd, clutching his kite and key.  The club mascot, the Philly Phanatic, has been firing his fake cannon loaded with foil-wrapped hotdogs into the stands around them, and the giant neon Liberty Bell is flashing and swinging to celebrate Poodles' homerun.

But the Phillies are still behind, with two out in the ninth inning, and even with Poodles Maguire's homer, they still need a run to tie the game. But Nelson Nolan, their best power hitter, is next at the plate.

The Mets pitcher hurled a fastball.  Nolan swung from his heels.  The bat struck the baseball with brute force. 

CRACK!

Bummer! Nolan's bat shatters into sharp shards, one of which hits the net right in front of Kate and Mike.  Even worse for Nolan,  the ball bounces lamely to the pitcher, who easily throws him out at first base.  Game over.

Kate and Mike console themselves with her mom's promise that the big green furry Philly Phanatic has promised to give them a ride around the park on his ATV after the game, and he does, even autographing their programs.  But as they make their way back toward the press box, one of the groundskeepers grumbles that the Phillies have had a bunch of broken bats during the last week, strangely always during big games and crucial at-bats.

Kate and Mike love a baseball mystery, and they gamely take on the challenge of this one.  As they question the grounds crew and other non-playing employees, suspicions seem to fall on the Philly Phanatic himself.  But "Phil," the Phanatic's alter ego, seems to be a nice guy and insists on his innocence. One worker claims to have seen the big green Phanatic fooling around the bats after the last game. But a manager tells the kids the bats are checked right before every game.

Kate and Mike decide that they must find a way to get into the dugout and take a careful look at the team's bats in the rack beside the bench.  But Mike looks nothing like the team's bat boy, and they can't even get through security pretending to deliver a fan's free hotdogs for the entire team. Did Mike blow his entire allowance on two dozen hotdogs?  Will the detective duo strike out or crack the case of the cracking bats?

David A. Kelly's Ballpark Mysteries #9: The Philly Fake (A Stepping Stone Book(TM))(Random House, 2014), takes his young detectives behind the scenes in yet another major league ballpark to uncover an unexpected saboteur among the crowd-pleasing mascots in his latest in his popular beginning chapter series, Ballpark Mysteries.  Kelly's easy reading mysteries combine the observational skills of a young Sherlocking pair with a solid dose of historic ballpark settings for lovers of  both baseball and sleuthing.

Making the Call: Screaming at the Ump by Audrey Vernick

People always assumed I was going to be an umpire, like my dad and his dad. Or teach at their umpire school, Behind The Plate. But the thing about umpires is, if they do their job well, they aren't part of the story at all.

Not that I wanted to be part of the story. I never wanted to be a player.

I wanted to write about baseball, to report on it, to show how every game is unique.

And now I could finally get started.

It would all begin today.

For eleven-year-old Casey Snowden, starting middle school means one thing--the chance to write about sports for a newspaper. For years he's been writing up Little League games and games on television just for the fun of it, but now Casey runs up against a set of rules he didn't anticipate. On his school newspaper, sixth graders don't get to write. Period. They sell ads and do the scut work for the seventh and eighth graders who do the stories, and if they follow directions, they may get to learn to do copy editing by the year's end. For the first time in his life, Casey finds himself bucking a system of rules, arguing with the umpire, in this case, Mr. Donovan, the faculty adviser, that he should get to submit a story, any story, one that Casey has yet to come up with.

At home things are seemingly the same. His best friend Zeke is still obsessed with being a part of TV reality shows but still loyally helps him out with the jobs associated with getting the family business, Behind The Plate, the third-best of three umpire schools in the country, up and running for the month of October. Casey picks up on his father's moodiness, crediting it to the reduced numbers of this year's enrollment, and volunteers to take over the popular You Suck, Ump Day, a popular local event in which people are invited to come and harass the umpires-in-training, Zeke pitches in to help, and Casey tries to push away worries about Behind the Plate to concentrate on coming up with a sports story good enough to convince Mr. Donovan that he's a real writer.

Then Casey notices that one of their would-be umpires, who calls himself Patrick MacSophal, looks amazingly like a clean-cut version of J-Mac, baseball superstar who dropped off the sports radar when faced with clear evidence that he had taken steroids to accomplish his stats. What if this MacSophal is that J-Mac, incognito and trying to get back into baseball? That would be a sports story any magazine or newspaper would want to print, not to mention the Clay Coves Middle School paper. And then Casey overhears a muted conversation between his father and MacSophal that validates his suspicions. Casey can't understand why his dad would have anything to do with this guy, a guy who broke the big rules, the rules of fairness, but clearly Casey has a real scoop, and the article almost writes itself. Mr. Donovan can't help but be impressed by his work when he reads that story.

Donovan may be surprised by Casey's investigative reporting, but he is not impressed with his journalism.

"It's not a bad article, Casey. I'm not sure where to start. As we go through more meetings, you'll have a chance to learn a lot--about objectivity, the ethics of journalism, invasion of privacy, interviews. That's a good starting point. Given your access to this guy, I couldn't help but wonder where you got your information and why you didn't include an interview."

I was stunned.

"I recommend you interview this character. I think that would strengthen your piece considerably. You have to work hard to keep your own feelings out of the article."

Fairness and objectivity, getting into position to see the whole play, Casey thinks. Just what his dad tries to teach his student umpires every day. Maybe he's missing part of the play here. It seems he broke some of the rules of journalism because he thought they didn't apply to him, just because he wanted the result so much. But wasn't that just why J-Mac broke his rules?

Audrey Vernick's Screaming at the Ump (Houghton Mifflin Clarion, 2014) deals with that coming-of-age experience when a maturing character becomes aware that there is a wider point of view than he has been able to see before. In a middle-school setting with all its conflicts and humor, with a framework of struggling umpire school in New Jersey, author Verneck blends her setting and theme seamlessly to tell the story of an appealing character struggling to tell his own story in a familiar landscape that he sees changing under his own feet. What are the rules, the real Rules, and how do we apply them fairly, how do we make the right call when we're the ones who have to make it? That's the big story everyone has to write, and Casey Snowden is on his way in this absorbing baseball story told from the other side of the plate.

Sleep Tight, Slugger! Goodnight, Baseball by Michael Dahl

TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALLGAME!

A boy and his dad head out to the giant stadium just outside of town, joining the crowd pushing through the turnstiles, and emerging into the sunlight with a view of that glowing green field with its bright white bases and baselines! For generations little baseball fans have gone out with their parents to share the fun and rituals of the game.

WE EAT POPCORN AND HOT DOGS AND DRINKS IN OUR LAPS.
WITH THE NAMES OF OUR FAVORITE TEAM BRIGHT ON OUR CAPS!

It's a memorable experience for a young boy, who hopefully lugs along his glove and joins the crowd in the bleachers at Rocket Stadium to wait for the umps to call "Play ball!"

And this game is everything a young fan could want--the crack of the bat, a homer hit way over the fence, and best of all, a foul ball that amazingly lands... right in the young fan's own glove, a ball that he'll always have to recall his first ballgame with Dad.

And when the big game is over, and the rising moon, looking like a scuffed-up game ball, rises over the city, there's one happy boy, holding his glove with the baseball folded safely inside, who curls up contentedly and falls asleep in the car on the way out of the park.

GOODNIGHT DIAMOND, GOODNIGHT GRASS.
GOODNIGHT, HOMEPLATE, WHERE EACH RUNNER RAN PAST.

Author Michael Dahl and artist Christine Forshay capture an idyllic view of a child's first baseball game in their Goodnight Baseball (Capstone Young Readers) (Sports Illustrated Kids) (Capstone/Sports Illustrated Kids, 2013), with Forshay's illustrations extending the simple text, adding the heady ambiance of the size and colors of the field and the excitement of the crowd. Along with Brian Lies' wonderful Bats at the Ballgame, this book makes a nice introduction to the ballpark experience. And... read Dahl's book last for its calming image of the young baseball fan back home in bed snuggled up and sleeping, still holding his glove and souvenir ball.

Big Man at the Plate: Super-Sized Slugger by Cal Ripken, Jr.

"Get ready for a beat down, fat boy!" were the exact words out of Dante's mouth the next time they met.

This was at 7:30 the next morning, right after Cody stepped off the school bus at York Middle. There might have been more in his cheery greeting, but it was hard to tell because the thug had him in a headlock now and was dragging him around in a circle and squeezing his ears.

"I'm sick of your big, ugly mug!" Dante snarled, digging his elbows into Cody's face. "Time to rearrange it."

By now a crowd of students had gathered to watch, apparently assuming a butt-whipping would be more interesting than, say, first period algebra or English.

"Isn't it a little early for this?" Cody managed to gasp.

New to Baltimore, Cody Parker knows he's overweight, likely to come in for some teasing at his new school. He's used to being called nicknames like Cody Porker, but he also knows he can play ball. He's got good hands: he's agile and able to hustle, with a strong arm at third base, and at the plate he can hit the fast ball and the curve with frequency over the fence.

But when he shows up to try out for the Babe Ruth League Orioles, he finds himself vying for the position against Dante Rizzo, a fifteen-year-old old eighth-grader famous for his gangster aspirations, the school's premier bully, who thinks third base should be his exclusive territory, and when Cody beats him out for the keystone slot, Dante swears he's going to make him sorry.

But Cody has an ally, his neighbor Jessica, who stops Dante in his tracks this time with a well-placed karate kick, but Cody knows that sooner or later Dante is going to take his revenge. Coach keeps firm team discipline at practice and during games, and Cody is careful to dodge Dante, sticking with some of his new friends on the team at school, but as the season moves into the playoffs, Cody feels the tension rising and senses that a showdown with Dante and his older brothers, nicknamed the Rottweiler twins, is out there waiting for him.

Then, during a rash of robberies at school, a stolen cell phone falls out of Cody's binder, and he is accused of the string of robberies. Cody sees Dante's sneer when he is taken out of class to the principal and suspects that Dante & Company are the thieves and that the phone was planted in his notebook as Dante's ultimate revenge. Now to clear his name and stay eligible for the big game, it is up to Cody, with Jessica's help, to prove who the thief really is.

Hall of Famer Cal Ripken, Jr. and Baltimore Sun writer Keven Cowherd manage to combine a middle-school mystery and exciting baseball gameplay in Cal Ripken, Jr.'s All-Stars: Super-sized Slugger (Hyperion, 2012) the second in the Cal Ripken, Jr.'s All Stars. Unlike football and basketball, baseball is a sport notably amenable to all body types, and Ripken and Cowherd take this opportunity to deal constructively with the problem of bullying of overweight students while keeping most of the focus on the ball-playing part of Cody's life from which he draws his self confidence. This one is a worthy addition to a promising sports series aimed at the middle-school reader, with plenty of action, short chapters, and a fast-moving plotline that will keep baseball fans' heads in the game to the final out.

Trading Places: Pinch Hit by Tim Green

Sam hesitated for a minute, not certain he wanted to hear the answer to his next question. "So... you like being me?"

"Most of it. What about being me?" said Trevor.

"What's not to like?"

"If I could play baseball, it'd be pretty perfect," said Sam.

"My dad says nothing's perfect."

"That's funny," Trevor said. "Mine, too!"

The one bright spot in Sam's rusty trailer lifestyle has always been baseball, and now with a great team, moving through the playoffs to the top spot, he has a chance to win a coveted place at the USC Summer Program that will be his ticket to a stardom in the big leagues. When his dad, an English teacher with a dream of writing a hit movie script takes him along to a "pitch" meeting at the movie studio, he suggests that Sam sign up as an extra to make some summer money while they're there.

Sam is astounded when an obviously excited casting director hastily picks him as a replacement stand-in for mega-kid star Trevor Goldman. Sam soon sees why: except for his longish hair, he and Trevor are dead-ringers for each other, scarily identical, even down to their mutual passion for baseball. The two soon conclude that their similarities in looks, voice, and personality are no mere happenstance. Both know they were adopted as newborns, and they just know they must have been twins, separated at birth.

Trevor has it all, rich, famous, and even loving parents, a mansion with his own batting cage and personal baseball trainer, a Malibu beach house, and a limo at his disposal, but the one thing he can't have is a place on a regular baseball team, with teammates, a season of play, a chance to see how good he really is at the game. In their eerie similarities, Trevor sees a way to live that dream, and persuades Sam to trade places with him for a few days. As a sweetener to the deal, Trevor and his co-star McKenna, who seems taken with Sam, offer to help Sam's father find a producer for his "old school" horror film script, Dark Cellar. So Sam gets a haircut and the two make the switch.

Sam discovers that like baseball, acting seems to be in his blood, and after a few bumbles, he begins to enjoy performing before the cameras and living in a style to which he is not, to say the least, accustomed. Trevor finds pinch-hitting for Sam takes more than acting skills, making a few fumbles in the field, and finds that hitting the curve ball is something his hired tutor neglected to teach. But like Sam, he finds that he's got the basic ability in him and his learning curve in the infield and at the plate is steep. He finds Sam's laid-back and literary dad a pleasant change from his own supercharged and often absent father and despite the constant aroma of the adjacent landfill, life in Sam's trailer home has a certain simplicity that he immediately settles into. Meanwhile, despite nagging worries about their switch interfering with his baseball dreams, Sam is liking the perks of being a movie star with a teen queen girlfriend.

But then, push comes to shove for the boys' plan. Trevor realizes that his baseball skills are not ready for the unscheduled appearance of the USC scout at a game and sees that he and Sam will have to find a way to switch back quickly or Sam may lose his one opportunity to make the summer camp. Even with McKenna's help, the double exchange ends in a cliffhanger chase with the whole identity trade on the line for this dynamic duo.

Tim Green, who practically owns the franchise on the gameplay-with-family-tension sports genre, makes a switcheroo himself in his latest, Pinch Hit (Harper/Collins, 2012), drawing the plot premise for this one from two classics, Shakespeare's tale of separated twins, The Comedy of Errors (reprised in Broadway's The Boys from Syracuse), and Mark Twain's evergreen The Prince and the Pauper, in which a ragpicker and a princeling exchange places with comedic and dangerous consequences. This one takes a bit of Coleridge's classic "willing suspension of disbelief," but with Green's strong storytelling chops in play, it's good page-turning fun, as Sam and Trevor make the best use of their identical DNA to carry off their plan and in the process begin to appreciate the challenges and rewards inherent in their very different lives. As one of Shakespeare's other titles says, "All's Well That Ends Well" and while Sam nails his big scene on the set and Trevor manages to make the diving catch and hit that curve along the way, this one plays out as a different sort of baseball novel for young Tim Green fans to devour.

Hard and Fast: Best of the Best by Tim Green

Josh's father pointed to the knob on the pitching machine that controlled its speed. "I think you're ready for ninety," he said.

Josh swallowed. Ninety miles an hour was a fast ball you might see in college or even the pros, and even though he stood nearly six feet tall, he was still just twelve.

"That scares you?" his father asked. "It should."

"I wouldn't do it if I didn't think you could handle it. I want to make sure that you develop everything you've got. I want you to go further than me. Everyone who sees you knows that you've got it."

Josh LeBlanc's father is a great little league coach whose guidance has led his team to national attention and earned himself a substantial stipend from Nike coaching traveling teams. Josh is a player of rare talents, hitting and playing shortstop, but his father's frustrated personal ambitions are putting a lot of pressure on him on the field and at home.

His father is pushing Josh to leave his team and join a local winning Little League squad which has earned a a slot in the playoffs leading to the Little League World Series, insisting that that venue will almost surely yield lucrative college scholarships. Josh is reluctant, but a promise that his best friend Benji can join the team if he qualifies leads him to agree with his father's plan.

But his father's ambitions at home are threatening to destroy the family. Insisting that his five-year contract with Nike means that the family should move to a grander house and lifestyle, his dad is soon spotted tooling around town in a sporty Audi convertible with an all-too-attentive red-haired real estate lady named Diane Cross who obviously is aiming at landing more than a big sale. And when his dad moves out of their home and moves in with his new obsession and hints that with Diane's guidance he's planning to "leverage" his contract with Nike into a cash investment which will make him rich, Josh knows that change is coming at him a lot harder and faster than a ninety-mile-an-hour fastball.

As the elimination games for the World's Series play out, Josh and his friend, would-be star reporter Jaden, also begin to investigate Diane's background and uncover a record of sleazy and downright illegal deals by her husband, "Right" Cross. Investigative journalism is Jaden's meat and potatoes, and she is sure that if they can manage to video the supposedly estranged couple together, they can show Josh's dad that he is being scammed. Josh's greatest hope is that his dad will change and reconcile with Josh's mother, but the surveillance plan by the two young sleuths proves dicey and dangerous as it is played out against a backdrop of the team's advancement to the final game of the Little League World Series.

As always, Tim Green's Best of the Best: A Baseball Great Novel (Harper, 2012) in its new edition for this season balances both exciting game play and family dynamics in a tautly-written novel for middle reader baseball fans in another solid sequel to Green's best-selling Baseball Great and Rivals: A Baseball Great Novel.

Pooch Playoff: Homer by Diane deGroat

Alex loves baseball, but his dog, fittingly named Homer, if anything, loves it more!

Homer doggedly follows Alex to ball practice and home again, and when Alex finally collapses into his bed and falls asleep to dream of play action under his posters and pennants, Homer is there on the rug right beside the bed. But Homer is a dog with a secret life.

...ONE SPECIAL NIGHT...

HOMER MET HIS FRIENDS AT THE BASEBALL FIELD.

"IT'S GOING TO BE A RUFF GAME!"

The cover of Diane de Groat's and Shelley Rottner's latest team effort, Homer [HOMER] [Hardcover] (Orchard, 2012), tells all. Rottner's photo and art collages pitch this tale with all the verve and creativity of their earlier hilarious hit, Dogs Don't Brush Their Teeth!, as skillfully manipulated photos of their canines are digitally adapted to the ballpark. We see the opposing teams, the Doggers and the Hounds, suiting up in their locker rooms and psyching themselves up in their doggy dugouts as the groundskeeper pooches prep the infield and the umps put on their chest protectors and take the field.

The ballpark itself has been set up specially for canines, with a convenient fireplug provided for the paws that refreshes near the on-deck circle, and the championship game is on.

The teams are well-matched, but as the game goes into the final inning, Homer's team, the Doggers, are trailing 3-0, and it looks like the Hounds are going to emerge top dogs after all.

But then, the Doggers rally.

ROCKET HITS A SINGLE!

The crowd begins to roar as Whitey gets on base, and Rocket races to second. And then Lucky manages to hit the pitcher's sneaky money pitch, a droolball!

The bases are loaded. It's all up to Homer as he steps up to the plate. The roaring crowd quiets as the count quickly goes to 2 and 0. Then Homer swings mightily and a long drive soars into center field. Is it a long out, or will it clear the fence and cinch the series for the Doggers?

Does Homer hit a homer? The outcome of this tail-wagging tale may not be in doubt, but in art as well as sport, it's not who wins or loses, but how you play the game, and the team of veteran author de Groat and illustrator Rottner show they've got game in their second canine collaboration. Kids will love the doggone funny visual humor as well as the verisimilitude of the digital ballpark and the varied canine breeds as seasoned ballplayers toiling on the mound and squaring off at the plate. As Kirkus Reviews points out in their play-by-play, "The format is everything here.... Even the endpapers are part of the fun, taking the form of doggie baseball cards. A howlingly good time."

Pair this one with Brian Lies big hit, Bats at the Ballgame, for a two-bagger baseball storytime treat.

Not Cool! Hothead by Cal Ripken, Jr., and Kevin Cowherd

What happened next felt like a dream--or maybe more like a nightmare. Don't do it! he told himself, but already he was screaming "No-o-o!" and tearing the glove off his left hand and sailing it high in the air over Willie's head.

In a flash the umpire bolted from behind home plate, tearing off his mask. "That's it, son! You're outta here!"

Stomping across the first-base line, Connor snarled at Jordy. "You couldn't jump any higher for that throw? My grandma could've caught that!"

Connor Sullivan seems to have it all. He's the best fielder and hitter in his Babe Ruth league, his teammates are solid in their positions--except for their screw-up-prone sub, Marty Loopus--and they have the best shot in the league to beat the Red Sox for the championship. Connor has a coveted bid tucked away at home to attend the prestigious Brooks Robinson summer camp. And cute middle school sports writer Melissa Morrow seems to have more than a professional interest in the story she's doing featuring him.

But if things are good in shortstop territory, they are troubling at home. Connor's dad has been out of work for over six months, his mom is working overtime at the hospital to try to take up the slack, and Connor can't help overhearing his parents' worried, whispered fears that they could lose their house. Money for baseball camps doesn't look like a possibility, and Connor can't seem to leave all that behind when he goes on-field.

And suddenly Connor feels like a spectator to his own out-of-control displays of anger on the playing field. At first they are directed at himself when he makes a blooper, but then in horror he hears himself berating his best friend Jordy for not fielding an impossibly wild throw to him at first base.

And Melissa, who is as passionate about her journalism as Connor is about baseball, hints that her story line may change to a chronicle of his his temper displays. Now Cooper also has to worry about whether his hotheaded antics will be the next gone-viral video on YouTube.

In his first in a planned series, Cal Ripken, Jr., and co-author Kevin Cowherd, have constructed a sports novel whose elements will be familiar to fans--a top-notch player whose real challenge is controlling his own emotions, a family situation which doesn't help, an arch rival on the other team, in this case the loutish Billy Burrell who throws beanballs as well as smoking strikes and calls him "Psycho Boy," and the intriguing girl reporter whose eyes he feels on him everytime he takes to the field.

In his first at-bat as a author, Cal Ripken, Jr.'s All-Stars: Hothead (Cal Ripken Novels) (Hyperion, 2011), Ripken navigates these familiar waters, so well charted by Matt Christopher, Tim Green, Mike Lupica, et al, unapologetically, with the added bonus of grace notes of real humor between the members of the Orioles' team, led by the self-deprecatory humor of the ever-game bench-rider, Marty Loopus, whose infectiously funny asides make him a perfect foil for Connor and one of the story's most engaging supporting characters. Here's Marty, doing his thing when Connor returns from his well-earned suspension:

Marty Loopus walked up to Connor, put both hands on his shoulders and looked him squarely in the eye.

"Playoffs start next week,"he said solemnly. "Promise me you'll control that famous temper of yours? Or do I have to keep carrying this team all by myself?"

You gotta love a baseball novel in which even the team's doofus bench sitter shows both humor and a passion for the game, a quality which Ripken gracefully rewards when he gives the bumbling Marty a shot at the catch that could seal the championship for the Orioles. "Fans of Mike Lupica and Matt Christopher will be thrilled," School Library Journal says, and these same fans will be looking forward to the next season of follow-up fiction from Ripken.

Fake or Phantom? The Pinstripe Ghost (Ballpark Mysteries) by David A. Kelly

Mike drummed his fingers on the side of his chair. He liked action more than talk, and press conferences were all talk and no action. But at least it was baseball talk.

"That's it for today," he said. "Except for one thing. The famous author Mr. Robert Williams will be here all weekend near the main entrance, signing copies of his new book, Ghosts in the Ballpark: A History of Haunted Baseball Stadiums and Supernatural Superstars."

"What about the ghost of Babe Ruth?" Kate's mom asked. "Some people are saying that the stadium is haunted," she added, "because the original Yankee Stadium where Ruth played was torn down. ... Some workers have heard strange noises."

Mike and Kate suddenly come to full attention. In New York for a series between the Yankees and the Mariners with Kate's reporter mom, the cousins can't resist a double challenge--a baseball mystery and tracking the ghost of the Yankees' most famous player. As soon as the stands come to life for the first game, they begin their sleuthing, beginning with the strange noises and rush of cold air near Bud's Hot Dog Stand. And while Mike takes time off from detecting to try out the hot dogs, it happens:

There was a rush of cool air. Kate and Mike felt the hair on their arms tingle.

"Here it comes," Bud said. "The ghost of Babe Ruth is in the house!"

KRRRRTT, SWWWWSSSSH, KRRRRTT.

Above them--or somewhere behind the stand--they heard muffled scraping and rustling sounds. The sounds got louder, and then they got softer.

Kate and Mike can't deny what they've heard or felt, but being a detective means to question everything and look for physical evidence, and the case is on!

Exploring the service tunnels under the stadium takes them to the outfield stands and to the Monument Park, where Mike spots a strangely familiar figure:

It was an older man in a Yankee uniform. Mike noticed how old and worn the uniform looked.

The man stared at the Yankees dugout. Without a word, he tipped his baseball hat toward the field.

"Did you see that?" he asked Kate.

"See what?" Kate was in front of the big brass plaque dedicated to Lou Gehrig.

"The guy who was just here." Mike said. "He was wearing an old-fashioned Yankee uniform."

Kate is skeptical, but Mike is convinced that he has caught a glimpse of the ghost of Babe Ruth. Still the kids continue their search for clues, checking out the storage closet along the service halls. One is surprisingly unlocked, and the kids notice a trail of dirt and mulch between the air conditioning vent and the doorway. Mike remembers seeing the same kind of dirt on the otherwise spotless floor around Bud's Hot Dogs. When Kate sees a group of teenagers led by a curly-haired redhead evicted for sneaking into the stadium, she begins to put together the evidence.

Author David A. Kelly's second book in the Baseball Mysteries offers plenty of distracting clues and possibilities for the presentiments of the "ghost." Bud the hot-dog man is profiting from the curious traffic around his stand, and author Williams, who obviously wants to fire interest in his book, is unusually stern when he appears with a box of his books and orders the kids out of the service area and back into the stands with a gruff command to leave the mystery to grownups. But of course, our baseball detectives are not deterred in this latest, Ballpark Mysteries #2: The Pinstripe Ghost (A Stepping Stone Book(TM)) (Random House, 2011). With plenty of false leads, real clues to put together, a bit of baseball play action on the field for sports fans, and a appendix "Stadium Notes: Yankee Stadium" for baseball trivia lovers, this newest entry has much to offer to the beginning chapter book reader.

And author Kelly wisely leaves one mystery still unsolved: Who was that enigmatic figure in faded Yankee pinstripes?

Root, Root, Root for the Home Team: Take Me Out to the Ballgame

KATIE CASEY WAS BASEBALL MAD.

SHE HAD THE FEVER AND SHE HAD IT BAD!

Katie Casey is one cat who knows what to do with a bat, and when she heads out to Sluggers Stadium to see her favorite team in action. It's a standoff between the big bat of Crocodile and the trick curve ball of Giraffe, and the crowd is ready for a dandy duel between this duo.

In rhyming verse, this frame story leads into the famous words of the song "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" which becomes the narrative of the big game. Big, vivid illustrations by Amiko Hirao take youngsters through the game, and Grammy winner Carly Simon's CD performance of the famous song in Take Me Out to the Ball Game (Imagine, 2011) make this one just right for singalong fun. Pair this one with Brian Lies' Bats at the Ballgame for big time ballgame story times.

Baseball Bats: Bats at the Ballgame by Brian Lies

Restless wings begin to itch--
excitement's at a fever pitch.
At last it's time, and with a sigh,
we hustle out to diamond sky.

Hurry up! Come one--come all!
We're off to watch the bats play ball!

From barn and belfry, cave and cupola, the bats stream forth into the darkling sky and soar to their appointed meeting place, the canopied diamond where, under the unaccustomed bright lights of night baseball, two traditional rivals meet for their annual face off. The smallest bats blink at their first sight of the overwhelming flood of light and color:

We wing from dark to dazzling bright,
startled by the stunning sight
of colors like we've never seen:
the browns so brown, the greens so green.

Old and young, they seem to take their seats as they hang from the soaring canopy while the pageantry of the game unfolds. Groundsbats prep the field, rolling a shaker of powdered sugar between the bases to mark them with fresh white lines and groom the mound with forks, and vendors flap above the stands calling out their wares. "Mothdogs Get yer mothdogs here!" "Perhaps you'd like some Cricket Jack?" Bats in patriotic red perform a flag flyover, and after the anthem comes the long-anticipated call--Play ball!

Something changes with those words.
We feel a magic shift
and ride the currents of the game
as time is set adrift.

The first innings are scoreless, as the pitchers duel and the scorekeeper bat chalks up a series of goose eggs on the big board. One young bat has his own magic moment as he snatches a ball hit foul and clutches proudly it to his fur. And then it's time to stand and stretch for the seventh inning singalong:

"Oh, hang me up in the rafters!
Hang me up by the toes!
Buy me some beenuts and Cricket Jacks..."

In Brian Lies' just published Bats at the Ballgame (Houghton Mifflin/Harcourt, 2010) the gameplay heats up in the final innings, and with new moments from this game to add to those faded but golden memories of the olden days, the jubilant fans stream out, just ahead of the new dawning day, back to their rafters and cubbyholes, one little fan still clutching his prize as he falls asleep--the foul ball he snagged all by himself at the big game.

In our dreams that perfect green,
our refuge from the drab routine
of headlong flutter, flurried flight...
until another baseball night.

Until again we hear the call:
"Welcome, fans--and now... play ball!

As in his earlier acclaimed Bats at the Beach and Bats at the Library Lies' amazing artwork triumphs over the difficulties inherent in designing his illustrations, all "shot" in the dark, so to speak, endowing his paintings with a luminosity which makes the details--the bats' fur and whiskers and their bright eyes, for example--glow with their own light. Likewise, his visual and verbal play will spark many a chuckle of recognition--as when, shown in the sepia monotones of memory the old bats fondly remember high points of bat baseball, "Bat" Ruth as he swings mightily for the fences, a Gehrig-like ballplayer humbly standing before the microphone at his last game. Readers will also notice that some pages need to be inverted to get a true bats-eye view of the scene. Kids (of all ages) who have been fortunate enough to experience the game and its traditions, with all its bright lights and colors and drama, will get this book instantly and will find much in the brilliantly detailed illustrations to pour over.

Brian Lies again comes through in the clutch: this one is over the fence and out of sight!

Far Out! Strike Three, Marley! by Ellen Beier and John Grogan

It was spring, and Cassie was going to her first baseball game.

"Come on, Marley!" said Daddy. "You can come, too!"

Daddy told Cassie the rules.

"If the batter misses the ball, it's called a strike. Three strikes and you're out."

Daddy looked around at Marley. "Your rules are simple," he told him.

"SIT. STAY. GOT IT?"

"RUFFFF!" Marley barked.

Gradually Cassie gets the hang of the rules of baseball and into the spirit of the game. Although he gets his rules, though, Marley finds it hard to stay with them. When a batter finally makes contact with the ball and hits it into the outfield, Marley has had enough of his rules.

"They're playing FETCH! That's my favorite game!" thought Marley. I want to play, too."

But when Marley joins the game, it's time out for the giggling players. Marley fields the ball and starts back toward the diamond, stopping to pick up second base, have a tug of war over a bat, "steal' home plate, and find a nice strip of conveniently soft, fresh dirt around the plate in which to bury the ball.

The pitcher laughed. "Sometimes I want to bury the ball, too."

Even the umpire forgets to call a foul when Marley sits down and offers him his paw. It's not exactly what Cassie expected from her first baseball game, but it surely is exciting!

"We're glad you're on OUR team, Marley," says Cassie.

There's never a dull moment when Marley is on your team, and in Marley: Strike Three, Marley! (I Can Read Book 2) (Harper, 2010) Marley is back on Harper's all-star I-Can-Read team, with a baseball story that will help keep beginning readers' scores in the educational big leagues. With an easy format, giggles and chuckles, oodles of pictures of the precocious pup Marley by illustrator Ellen Beier, and baseball-related vocabulary in Susan Hill's text, rookie readers are all set for their first season with the famous all-star and best-selling Marley.

Grumpy Slump: Slumpbuster by Kevin Markey

I was ready to take on the Hog City Haymakers in the biggest game of the year.

Walloper was what my friends called me. It was short for the Great Walloper, on account of I like to wallop the tar out of the ball. I got that nickname back in the Pee Wees, when I first started going deep.

Walloper's real name is Banjo Hit Bishbash. The "Hit" is really his mom's maiden name, but up to the day of the big game with the Haymakers "Hit" is Banjo's middle name in more than one way. His classmate, sports reporter Gabby Hedron, has already forecast the outcome of the game in the Bambletown Bulletin:

The Bumbletown slugger has hit a home run in every game this season. If the pattern holds, he'll launch another one today and catapult the Rounders into first place.

The Haymakers are no straw men, however. For one thing, for rising sixth graders, they're REALLY BIG!

"Every kid on the team looked like a grown man. I swear some of those bad boys even had mustaches..."

With the Haymakers' ace pitcher Flicker Pringle on the mound, the Rounders have a tough time scoring, and even The Walloper watches Flicker's pitches whoosh by for two at-bats. When he finally comes up to bat in the final inning, the bases are loaded and the fans are calling for one of his trademark long gone balls. But, alas, he whiffs three more pitches, and the Haymakers are the only ones who go home happy.

It's a classic midseason slump, and Banjo can't catch a break at the plate from that day on. He watches his position sink in the batting order from third to pinch-hitter, and the Great Walloper is reduced to bench-warming. He even sprouts his own cloud of gloom, nicknamed The Slump, which floats around above his head everywhere he goes like his own personal storm. The team plays gamely as the season winds down and keeps the Rounders in contention, no thanks to The Walloper, who watches Kid Rabbit Winkle take over his place on third base. But even as an occasional designated hitter, Banjo can only go down swinging every time. With their records tied, the race for the pennant comes down to the last game between the Rounders and the Haymakers.

In the latest in his humorous series, The Super Sluggers: Slumpbuster (HarperCollins, 2009) Kevin Markey spins a fanciful baseball yarn loaded with preposterous events, colorful players, and quirky townspeople which culminates in a jolly conclusion in the final inning of the Big Game. Royce Fitzgerald's occasional drawings add a lot to this easy-to-read baseball tale which will attract baseball fans and reluctant readers alike.

Martha's Got Game! Play Ball (Martha Speaks) by Susan Meddaugh

We have a softball game tomorrow," says Truman.

"The coach says I have to play.

But I can't catch the ball!"

"Barking bloopers!" says Martha. I'll give you catching lessons.

Trust me--I'm an expert."

After all, Martha and her sidekick Skits are great catchers--balls, Frisbees, whatever! Martha takes her friend to the park where Helen's friend Alice is making some practice throws to Skits. Skits demonstrates his faultless technique, and Alice agrees to pitch a few to Truman. But Truman is afraid of the ball and hides his eyes. "Try to keep your eyes on the ball," Martha says, but even when he gets his glove on the ball, it bounces right out again. "Squeeze the glove," Martha suggests.

Finally their coaching pays off, and Truman begins to hang onto the ball most of the time. And when Coach puts him into the field the next day, Truman gets right under a pop fly and pulls it in like a pro.

There's only one problem. Truman doesn't know how to throw the ball to pick off the runner trying to make second base. OOOOPS!

"Martha? Can you teach me to throw the ball?" he pleads.

"Sorry," Martha says. "Dogs can't throw.

NO THUMBS!"

Even a talking dog like Martha can only do so much, but Martha can always be counted on to pitch in and do what she can. Susan Meddaugh, creator of the Martha picture books series, and her collaborators Marcy Sacks and Susan Kim from the PBS TV series "Martha Speaks" pitch in to create another in her Green Light Level 2 series, Martha Speaks: Play Ball! (Reader) (Martha Speaks Readers) Houghton Mifflin, 2010) for beginning readers. Appended are some activities to reinforce vocabulary introduced in the text, and for more reading fun with Martha the Talking Dog, visit her online at PBSKids here.