Power Hitter

April 1, 2012

Gr 6-10-This hi/lo series focuses on individual members of an elite travel team of 17-and-under baseball players from Las Vegas. In Forced Out, Zack's team gets the funding to play in a New York tournament that will have a lot of major-league-scout representation. However, when a new kid who's mediocre at best-but whose father is a multimillionaire-suddenly joins the team, Zack realizes that the coach might have compromised his standards for the travel money that Dustin's dad is promising. How can Zack support his coach and still be a good friend to the catcher, who is being forced out of his position by Dustin? In Power Hitter, Sammy Perez is one of the team's best hitters. When Coach signs the team up for a wooden-bat tournament, Sammy believes he will never be noticed by an MLB scout-his hits just are not as dramatic with wood-and he sees his dreams of supporting his family slipping away. His father tells him of a performance-enhancing drug that doesn't show up on tests, and Sammy is tempted to try them for that extra edge. Shortstop Trip Costas takes center stage in Out of Control. His father has lived out his baseball dreams through his sons, but Trip is tired of his father directing his life and wants to take a break. Only the wisdom of Coach Harris and others allows him to separate his frustration with his father from his feelings for the game. These authors pack a lot of drama and sports action into about 100 pages. The characters might be just a little too good to be true, but the tone is not didactic, and students will appreciate the real-life issues and ethical dilemmas that the players face.-Kim Dare, Fairfax County Public Schools, VA

Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2012
Grades 4-6 Almost entirely devoid of any element that isn't baseball related, this entry in the Travel Team series is just the ticket for readers who prefer their sports fiction distraction-free. His Las Vegas team's switch from aluminum to wooden bats leaves talented slugger Sammy Perez suddenly unable to hit a lickand this with a big tournament coming up in Texas. His main problem is his fixed self-image as a power hitter, but as he struggles to control outbursts of temperand even begins to give serious thought to his father's suggestion that steroids might be the way to gohe continues to practice, practice, practice. When the tournament comes, that work ethic pays off, but not as he expects; instead of putting on a power display, Sammy provides spectacular defense and heady team play that draw a major-league scout's admiring attention. Except for one dateand that to a ball gameit's all baseball all the time, with some genuine character development by the end.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)