Extra innings

Bulletin of the Center For Children's Books

Peck paints a seductive portrayal of a young man's journey back to health. The Stonemasons are a family worth meeting.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Only the most ardent of baseball fans will likely cotton to this preachy, maudlin effort from the author of The Day No Pigs Would Die. When the rest of his immediate family dies in a plane accident, teenager Tate Stonemason survives. His leg shattered, he struggles with his grief, especially in giving up his dream of pitching in the major leagues. By the end, Tate conquers his inner demons with the help of his great-aunt Vidalia, an African-American woman adopted into his family after spending her early years touring with a "colored" baseball team called Ethiopia's Clowns. Peck devotes the second third of the book to Vidalia's history and the last third to Tate's great-grandfather, Abbott, so readers never fully identify with the young protagonist's predicament. Worldly Aunt Vidalia is a little too perfect, and Tate's worship of her is so artificially worded it rarely sounds authentic: "Vidalia, you are so wise, it's eerie," says Tate. "Is there anything you don't know? Honestly, is there?" The best parts of Peck's novel chronicle the sports adventures of Vidalia's childhood, which vividly capture the politics of mixed-race baseball in the 1930s. Elsewhere, clunky writing bogs down this tale in service of a moral. Ages 12-up. (Mar.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Children's Literature

Peck, author of A Day No Pigs Would Die, knows that in the American South, history and the present day are never really separate. His protagonist, Tate, loses his family and his dream of playing baseball after a plane crash. Living with elderly relatives, Tate finds a reason to live through Great-Aunt Viddy's tales of a Depression-era barnstorming team called the Ethiopian Clowns. The stories engage and delight him, but they also teach him that family is family, no matter how unorthodox, and that loss doesn't give someone the right to give up. Peck's prose is Southern-courtly, drawling yet musical. His love for the history of the game shines throughout. 2001, HarperCollins, $15.95 and $15.89. Ages 12 up. Reviewer: Donna Freedman

KLIATT

Peck's book covers all the bases (pun intended) for readers to enjoy. There is baseball for sports fans, history for those who like historical fiction, race relations for fans of politics, and a little romance for fans of love stories. Tate loses his leg and all of his immediate family in a plane crash. He goes to live with his great-grandfather and great aunt. As he is trying to recover from the loss of his family and the loss of his dream of playing baseball professionally, Vidalia, his great aunt, tells him the story of her life before his great-grandfather adopted her. Vidalia was abandoned as a baby on a bus filled with traveling black baseball players. They did not discover her until they were many miles away from town, so they decided to keep her as their mascot. She traveled from town to town with them learning about baseball and life, the life of a colored person in the South before desegregation, during the Depression. When she was ten, the man she considered her father died playing ball and one of the white ball players from the other team took her home. He and his wife fell in love with her and adopted her. She tells Tate her story to help drag him out of his depression and to give him a purpose—she wants him to write a book about Ethiopia's Clowns, the ball team she lived with on the purple bus. Many students will enjoy this story, with some salty language; it is more appropriate for young adults in high school or mature junior high students. The message of perseverance is timeless and seen on many levels of this novel. KLIATT Codes: JS—Recommended for junior and senior high school students. 2003, HarperTrophy, 216p.,
— Stacey Conrad

VOYA

After sixteen-year-old Tate boards his family's private jet, it explodes during takeoff. Thrown clear, Tate is left with a mangled leg and the loss of his immediate family. He moves to his great-grandfather Abbott's mansion, which also houses Vidalia, Abbott's adopted black daughter. When baseball player Tate shows anger about his leg, Vidalia offers solace by sharing her childhood of traveling with a black baseball team in the Depression-era South. Abbott and his wife adopted Vidalia when the team disbanded. Later, Abbott describes attending Ty Cobb's funeral, albeit in his Bentley. If only the remainder of this book were as focused and gripping as its prologue. Because the majority of the book is Vidalia's story, readers witness little grieving for Tate's losses. Inconsistencies plague this story. Within a year, once-injured Tate ably kills Vidalia's aged dog, and when Vidalia dies, he nimbly climbs into her grave and opens the coffin to place a forgotten memento. He also begins flying model airplanes, finds love, and although his leg miraculously heals, ballplayer Tate turns author. Moreover, Abbott's impossibly genteel lifestyle is supported by loyal black servants, and there is nary a hint of prejudice regarding Abbott's adoption and rearing of a black child by whites in the South during the tumultuous times of the Depression. Readers will question these improbable circumstances and events, and despite the age of the teen protagonist, this novel lacks the depth to interest high school students. Middle level baseball fans will learn more baseball history through Vidalia and Abbot's narratives, with the book's stories-within-a-story providing them a multilayered structural framework.VOYA CODES: 2Q 2P M J (Better editing or work by the author might have warranted a 3Q; For the YA with a special interest in the subject; Middle School, defined as grades 6 to 8; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9). 2001, HarperCollins, 176p, $15.95. Ages 12 to 15. Reviewer: Lisa Spiegel SOURCE: VOYA, August 2001 (Vol. 24, No. 3)

School Library Journal

Gr 6-8-Sixteen-year-old Tate Stonemason survives the crash of a small plane that killed his parents and sister. Injuries from the crash also destroy his dream of playing baseball in the major leagues one day. Bitter and lonely, Tate is comforted by his Great-Granddad Abbott Bristol Stonemason and the man's adopted African-American daughter, Vidalia. She tells Tate of her early childhood spent with Ethiopia's Clowns, a Depression-era, all-black baseball team that barnstormed its way through the South, before she was adopted by the white Stonemason family. The long story within a story of her childhood is her legacy to the teen. After her death, he finds a reason to go on with his life, as he begins to write Vidalia's oral history. The account of the barnstorming team, getting by on a shoestring and finding kindness and hatred in the deep South, is the best part of this book. Many readers, however, will find it difficult to plow through the elaborate dialogue that can best be described as baroque. Unfortunately, Tate and his relatives seem rather remote and artificial creations. At the novel's end, readers may find it difficult to care much about the boy because they haven't gotten to know him very well.-Todd Morning, Schaumburg Township Public Library, IL Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Memorable for its cast, if not its patchy plot, this tale revolves around a teenager regaining his balance, both figuratively and literally, after losing most of his upper-class family. But as the title indicates, it's really more about the lives and characters of the elderly relatives who take him in. A plane crash has left Tate Stonemason without parents, grandparents, or siblings, and with a shattered leg that has brought an end to his dreams of playing professional baseball. Only his great grandfather Abbott and Abbott's adopted daughter, Vidalia, herself over 70, remain to care for him. They do that, in part, by sharing baseball memories: Abbott, of attending Ty Cobb's funeral; Vidalia, of"Ethiopia's Clowns," African-American barnstormers who raised her for ten years during the Depression era after she was left as a baby on the team bus. Peck (Cowboy Ghost, 1999, etc.) stitches together a set of connected but separate tales. They include an airport worker's act of negligence that causes the crash; the Clowns' experiences in towns both hostile and welcoming; the adoption of young Vidalia into the Stonemason family despite the color of her skin; and finally, Vidalia's death, and the keeping of certain promises made to her by Tate and Abbott. The Stonemasons' oddly stilted way of speaking with each other—" ‘Mr. Tate believes that there's only darksome, but all he has to do is wait patient for a dawn. No storm endures forever. There always comes a sunup. Perhaps not the perfect day, but nevertheless a spanking-fresh one.' "—has the effect of bringing out how strong, close, and loving they are, and though the worst of Tate'sdarknight passes betweenchapters, his healing brings the story to a strong close. (Fiction. 11-14)