01 May / Keeping Score by Linda Sue Park [in Bloomsbury Review]
Maggie is the youngest in a family of baseball lovers. While she might not play herself – girls usually didn’t in the 1950s – she knows the game inside and out. She hangs out with guys at the firehouse where her father used to work (until an accident moved him to a desk job), where she meets the latest recruit, Jim, who shows her how to keep detailed score of every game.
When Jim is shipped to the front lines of the Korean War, Maggie writes to him regularly about the baseball season back home. When his letters stop coming, Maggie understandably worries, and when she finds out why, she devises a new plan to try to help Jim. This latest title from the Newbery Award-winner proves to be another remarkable and important historical lesson packaged in an engaging read.
Tidbit: Linda Sue Park was a much lauded guest for the Smithsonian’s Korean American Centennial Commemoration‘s fall program, “Children’s Books,” on September 13, 2003.
Readers: Children
Published: 2008