Game Seven

January 1, 2015
Sixteen-year-old Julio Ramirez Jr. dreams of being a junior Nacional and playing for Cuba against the best young players around the world.Baseball is "practically a religion" in Cuba, and Julio's father was like a Cuban god, an all-star pitcher for the Cuban National Team. Now, having defected, he's a star for the Miami Marlins. But instead of pride, Julio feels resentment toward his father for abandoning his family to a life of poverty while he, the great El Fuego, lives the high life in Miami with his multimillion-dollar contract. Moreover, Julio's baseball dreams may not come true: How can he be trusted to leave the country when his father defected; won't he do the same? So Julio defects too, and in a tense and slightly comic scene, he drives to Florida in a green '59 Buick that's been converted into a boat. Julio's reconciliation with his father is handled deftly in its poignant awkwardness, and baseball action is appropriately exciting, though the notion that Julio is allowed to hang out with his father during Game 7 of the World Series is seriously implausible. Volponi wisely shies away from a tidy, inspirational ending but does leave room for hope for reconciliation. An entertaining tale of baseball, family and loyalty. (Fiction. 10-14)

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May 1, 2015

Gr 6-9-Julio Ramirez, Jr., son of a former Cuban national baseball hero known as El Fuego, is an outstanding player in his own right. He dreams of making the Cuban national junior team, but is viewed with suspicion because of his father's defection to the United States several years before. Julio's feelings toward his father are conflicted: he is proud of the older man's success in the American major leagues, but feels abandoned, as he, his sister, and his mother remain in poverty in Cuba while El Fuego enjoys the benefits of his multimillion dollar contract with the Florida Marlins. Unbeknownst to Julio, his father has made arrangements for him, his uncle, and his cousin to escape the island with the help of a guide named Gabriel. By means of a retrofitted '59 Buick, the four make the harrowing journey from Cuba to Miami, even as El Fuego is playing a starring role in the World Series. Arriving in the U.S., the group is put up in a luxury apartment, but much to Julio's disappointment, his father does not make an appearance. In a turn of events that stretches credulity, Julio is spirited into the Marlins's clubhouse by an ESPN reporter just before the beginning of the final game of the Series. He and his father discuss family issues as the game progresses. While their reunion is moving and appropriately equivocal, sports-savvy youngsters may find the prospect of a teenager chatting up his dad in the bullpen during game seven of the World Series a little difficult to swallow. VERDICT With its short chapters and simple vocabulary, the novel moves along briskly and would be a good fit for reluctant readers with a taste for baseball and adventure.-Richard Luzer, Fair Haven Union High School, VT

Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2015
Grades 7-12 Like so many young people in Cuba, Julio Ramirez breathes baseball. He is likely the best 16-year-old shortstop in Cuba, but hanging over his futureand his chance to play for the Nacionalesis his father, who defected to the U.S. six years earlier and is playing for the Marlins in the World Series. Struggling to make ends meet, along with his mother and sister, Julio is stunned when the chance to escape to Miami with his uncle and cousin lands in his lap, and he is faced with a terribly difficult choice. Volponi once again delivers top-notch sports fare coupled with a deeper story of family and fidelity. Reminiscent in some ways of Frances Temple's 1992 novel Taste of Salt, Volponi's story explores the danger of emigration on water and the challenges of national and personal identity when you hate your homeland. Readers will identify with Julio as he juggles dreams, bitterness, and family loyalties in this lyrical, spare novel.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)