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.

Camp Secrets: Camp K-9 by Mary Ann Rodman

"WE'RE CAMP K-9 PUPS, AND WE'RE THE BEST!" HOWL THE DOGS ON THE BUS.

ALL EXCEPT ME.

I HAVE A SECRET TO GUARD. IT'S IN MY POOCH POUCH, SAFE IN MY LAP.

Roxie's secret is her blankie, hidden at the bottom of her Camp K-9 backpack, something she is ashamed to admit that she must have to feel safe. But keeping a shameful secret is hard work, and it makes making friends with her bunkmates in the Mutt Hut hard.

"BUT BEING FRIENDS MEANS SHARING SECRETS, AND I CAN'T SHARE MINE," SHE THINKS.

Roxie has one built-in bond with her bunkmates, though. They are all afraid of the pushy poodle Lacey, who bullies everyone right from the start. When Lacey pushes Roxie off the bunk she has chosen and marked with her pooch pouch, Roxie is afraid to stand up to her, and the other campers pretend not to notice so that they won't have to stand up to Lacey either. But Roxie can't help noticing that Lacey hangs on to her own pooch pouch, too, even as she bosses her all the way through their canoeing lesson.

"I WANT MY BLANKIE AND I WANT IT NOW!" ROXIE THINKS TO HERSELF.

At last the long first day of camp is over and Roxie is comforted by the thought of her blankie, waiting safely stashed under her pillow. But as the campers turn in for lights out, a sharp-eyed girl make a surprising discovery!

"A BLANKIE! LACEY'S GOT A BLANKIE!

The rough, tough Lacey sleeps with a blankie? The Mutt Hut mates are astounded and sense a chance to get even with Lacey for her meanness all day. But then Roxie has a moment of truth.

"WAIT A MINUTE! SHE'S SCARED. SHE'S NOT REALLY MEAN. SHE WAS JUST HIDING HER BLANKIE, LIKE ME!"

Mary Ann Rodman's and Nancy Hayashi's brand-new Camp K-9(Peachtree, 2011) handles one of the fears that sleepover camps bring out in the bravest of campers, the fear that the others will find something about them to tease, and the idea that everyone has their own fears is consoling and the means to a giggly resolution to this situation, as the other girls break out their own blankies at bedtime. Pair this one with Laura Numeroff's recent similarly themed story, The Jellybeans and the Big Camp Kickoff for a pair of stories which will help ease those pre-camp jitters.