No Cream Puffs

Author: Karen Day
Publisher: Wendy Lamb Books (division of Random House)
ISBN (library bind): 9780375937750 Copyright 2008
Price: $15.99 #pages: 209 Call number: FIC DAY
Recommended for grades 5-8.

Annotation:
Madison Mitchell is a 12-year old tomboy who loves to play baseball and is quite good at it. Her older brother has coached her and encourages her to join one of their town’s summer league teams. She does and since the year is1980, she becomes the first girl in Michigan to play on a boy’s baseball team. She is one of the best players in the league and soon she is noticed by the press. The newspaper calls her a trailblazer, crowds begin to come to her games and then TV cameras begin to show up. Some of her teammates accept her and others are jealous. Madison doesn’t want to prove anything; she just wants to play baseball because she likes it. There are some subplots in the story as well; Madison losing her best friend to the popular clique, having her first crush on a boy, and coming to terms with her dad’s abandonment of their family and learning to make difficult choices. The novel is realistic and told from a middle school student’s point of view.

Curriculum
Social History of the 1980’s, sex roles and stereotypes
Character Education: discrimination, empathy for others, handling conflict and pressure; and learning to accept yourself.

Picture book tie in:
Champions on the Bench-The Cannon Street YMCA All-Stars
by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrations by Leonard Jenkins
Published by Dial Books for Young Readers, copyright 2007.

This book is based on the true story of the Cannon Street YMCA league, the only Little League in South Carolina for African Americans in 1955. It tells of how 61 all white teams refused to play them in the tournament and withdrew to start their own league. This book illustrates the prejudices of the time and how it affected the everyday things like Little League baseball.