All-star Season (Kar-Ben for Older Readers)
Grade 4–6—Brothers Avi and Reuven share a love of baseball, and they both hope to make the local All-Star team. Eighth-grader Avi approaches the game and life with a laid-back attitude, while worrywart Reuven, a ninth grader, injures himself trying to get ahead by learning to throw a curveball. He reluctantly learns to find satisfaction in his brother's success. Fans of the game will be intrigued by this jargon-laden story, but it won't attract other readers. Non-baseball elements of the tale all have a secondary feel, and characters are not well-rounded. There is some detail about the siblings' Orthodox Jewish school and family life, but faith has little impact on the characters' choices or actions. Reuven is so painfully self-conscious and surly that he strains readers' sympathy, and he grows very little through the course of the novel. This book seems to set out to be "a Jewish baseball story," and it fulfills that role without going beyond this simple description. For a Jewish baseball story with more likable characters and more interesting social implications, try Carol Matas'sRosie in Chicago: Play Ball!(S & S, 2003).—Heidi Estrin, Feldman Children's Library at Congregation B'nai Israel, Boca Raton, FLCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.