Out of Left Field

Starred review from April 2, 2018
Ten-year-old Kathleen Curie Gordon’s knuckling curveball is so good it wins her a Little League tryout—wearing her cap, Katy can pass as a boy. She makes the team but is outed by another player’s parent; it’s 1957 and league rules expressly prohibit girls. Klages interweaves Katy’s story with the current events she’s studying in fifth grade: the space race, desegregation, and the move of the Giants from New York to San Francisco, where they displace Katy’s favorite team, the minor league Seals. When Katy decides to write her history paper on women in baseball (in part to refute the league official’s claim that baseball “has always been the sole province of male athletes”), she uncovers a trove of information about female stars. Katy’s mom, a chemistry professor who has faced her own discrimination battles, is particularly well drawn, as she empowers her daughter to fight injustice. By the time she affirms, “Other people’s rules about what girls can and cannot do have never applied in this house,” whether Katy gets to play or not is somewhat less important than what she has learned about resistance. Ages 8–12.

April 1, 2018

Gr 4-7-"Keep asking questions. Never settle for being ordinary." Katy Gordon is anything but ordinary. She's got a special Sunday pitch that will strike out just about anybody, but her local Little League won't let her on the team just because she's a girl. Katy sets out to change their minds; after all, it's 1957 and the world is changing. To back up her legal argument (including a phone call with an ACLU lawyer), she uncovers the history of the All-American Girls Baseball League during WWII, the Bloomer Girls teams of the 1890s, and the young women who played in the Negro Leagues throughout the 1940s and 50s. Spurred on by her intelligent and independent single mother, Katy incorporates all of these forgotten women into a school project. Whenever Katy makes a new discovery, her excitement is contagious. The 1957 setting, a particularly tumultuous year for the U.S., is incorporated seamlessly into the narrative. The narrative, though rich in details, never gets bogged down. This title also includes substantial back matter, such as a list of female ballplayers, an author's note, a glossary of baseball terms, and further recommended reading. Klages gives Katy a strong voice and helps spotlight the history of marginalized women in sports history. VERDICT Featuring powerful female characters, this is historical fiction that doesn't drag for a second. A fine purchase.-Kerri Williams, Sachem Public Library, Holbrook, NY

Copyright 2018 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from March 15, 2018
Grades 4-7 *Starred Review* It's 1957 and the end of an era for fifth-grader Katy Gordon's beloved San Francisco Seals, who will be replaced next year by the Giants, the first major league team to play in San Francisco. A skilled pitcher, Katy gets scouted for her local Little League team, only to find out she's barred from playing?�because she's a girl?which sets her off on a quest to prove to them that girls are perfectly capable of playing baseball. Whether it's researching at the library at UC Berkeley, where her mom is a chemistry professor, or writing letters to women who played on women-only baseball teams in the 1940s, Katy uncovers the truth. Women have always played baseball?�as barnstormers, in Bloomer leagues, and in the Negro leagues. A girl struck out Babe Ruth, for Pete's sake! So why have these stories been left out of the history books? In her newest novel, set against the backdrop of the space race, acclaimed historical fiction author Klages returns in fine form. Katy's fury is palpable, and her drive to make things better both for her generation and those to come will inspire. Notable, too, is the care and attention paid to Katy's mother, whose own experience with discrimination has shaped her worldview and how she raises her daughters. Appended baseball cards of 12 notable female baseball players and an author's note provide further context. A grand slam.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2018
It's 1957, and talented pitcher Katy Gordon isn't eligible to play Little League baseball because she's a girl. Frustrated, she sets off to fight the rule and discovers the stories of a dozen (real-life) women baseball pioneers. Although the prose is perfunctory, the women are inspiring, and Katy's persistence is admirable. Appended with additional information ("Meet Katy's Twelve Ballplayers") and an author's note. Reading list, websites. Glos.

(Copyright 2018 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

Starred review from March 1, 2018
Katy's such a good pitcher that she is accepted as one of the boys on the local sandlot in 1957 San Francisco.She calls herself Casey and tries out for Little League as a boy. She makes the team, but her ruse is discovered, and she is ruled ineligible. But Katy is from a family of strong, highly educated women, and she will not give up. In a reply to her letter to Little League headquarters, she is informed that the game had always been solely for males. Determined to find proof that girls have played baseball, Katy meticulously begins her research, enlarging her parameters to dovetail it with an assigned fifth-grade project. Her first discovery is of Jackie Mitchell, the girl who struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in 1931. She delves deeper and discovers that "girl's baseball had a lot of history, but not a lot of now." Klages seamlessly interweaves Katy's research with the world-changing events of 1957, from Sputnik to Little Rock, allowing readers to access the information with Katy. She is Jewish, and her friends are Jewish, Japanese, African-American, white, and more--both ethnicity and race play important roles in the tale. Katy can't win the battle, but readers with be enthralled by both her spirit and the stories of the real women of baseball, thumbnail bios of whom appear in the backmatter.A grand slam in every way. (author's notes, glossary, recommended reading, acknowledgements) (Historical fiction. 8-12)

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