Back to: Arts & Entertainment
Can anyone recommend some good baseball-themed books for my baseball crazy nephews, ages 7,8 & 9? I've looked through the baseball section at cody's and found baseball dictionaries and trivia collections, etc., as well as baseball-themed picture books for younger kids and short worshipful bios of stars like sammy sosa. They have all of those. What I'm looking for, if they exist, are chapter books that are wonderful stories in their own right but have baseball themes, fiction or non-fiction. Are there kids equivalents of "Field of Dreams" or "The Iowa Baseball Confederacy" or "If I Never Get Back" (wonderful novels for adults that happen to be about baseball)? Dashka
From: Kimberly
I want to recommend two great books for older kids my husband and I read last weekend. These are a wonderful read for the 9 & up set, and are just as good for adults as for the 9 year olds. They are:
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
These are about an orphaned boy who lives with his nasty aunt, uncle, and
cousin. His life is miserable until one day he gets a letter from
Hogwart's School of Wizardry and Witchcraft; he discovers that he is a
wizard and there's a whole society of wizards and witches he has been
totally unaware of. Not only that, he finds out he is famous among witches
and wizards for defeating a powerful Dark Wizard when he was an infant
(this is how his parents died).
He gets his school supplies (capes, wand, cauldron, an owl, etc.) and goes to school. The first book is about his first year at school and the second book covers his second year. Harry and his friends struggle through their classes ("Charms," "Defense Against the Dark Arts," "Potions") which are held in a vast turreted castle full of ghosts, poltergeists, and enchanted objects. These books are fantastically imaginitive and among the best young adult novels I've read. They would be especially great for family reading out loud. They are available in hardbound, but Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com has them for half off, about $8 each. The second book won a slew of awards, including the National Book Award.
Also, in Sept/Oct., a third book will be released, called Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkabar. It will preseumably cover his third year at school.
Even though I'm the only one in the family who has a specific interest in chilren's literature, I got my husband started on these and he couldn't put them down. Stayed up all night finishing them.
I read Harry Potter and the Socerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling to my 7 year old daughter and 9 year old son. It was such a magical, exciting and wonderful book. We went through a sad period when we finished the book but luckily we got a copy of the sequel and it is so good the kids beg and plead for me not to stop reading, but I don't want to finish the book too fast and end such an enchanting adventure.
About books ages 7-12. My son, now 10, has been a big reader all along. There are certain books he reads over and over. Among them are Lizard Music by Pinkwater, Chicken Trek, by Manes, the short story collections by Paul Jennings (They al l start with "Un" --Undone, Unreal, Un???etc. When he was younger he loved the Wayside School series (L. Sachar, I think) Also the TimeWarp trio series by Sziesca(sp?) He's read that new Harry Potter book about 4 times. He's always loved non-fiction. There's a series of books called the "Imponderables" by Feldman with titles such as How Does an Astronaut Scratch an Itch? Most of these are available at the Berkeley Public Library.
I recently asked a friend with a 10-year-old daughter the same question, and here's an excerpt her answer (with editorial comments from the mom): "Over the years she has enjoyed the Betsy-Tacy books; the Beverly Cleary series; the Moomintrolls (Tove Jannson, sp?); The Hobbit; the Oz series; the Pye stories; The Witch Family (my personal favorite); Dr. Doolittle stories (a bit boring if you ask me...); and is currently VERY into the Redwall series (Brian Jacques--it's not unlike the Hobbit in that is adventurous and occasionally violent, and all the characters are animals, but in medieval settings). Oz, Doolittle, and Cleary are probably too easy for a nine or ten-year-old." Also, my own favorites from my childhood (can't recall exactly how old I was, probably about 8) include anything by E.L. Konigsberg, especially Jennifer, Hecate, MacBeth, William McKinley and Me, Elizabeth (girl protagonists); About the B'Nai Bagels (boy protagonist), and From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. For girls in particular, the All Of A Kind Family books by Sydney Taylor, which are about five sisters growing up on New York's Lower East Side in the early part of the century, are wonderful.
More books for ages 7-12. My children really enjoyed Brian Jacques's 'Redwall' books, especially 'Martin the Warrior', 'Mossflower' (with a female heroine), and 'Redwall.' Elise (at 13) is re-reading them this vacation, with great delight. They are classic tales of good vs. evil using animals as characters, with battles, intrigue, escapes, treachery, and heroic deeds. Along the way there are fantastic meals, stories-within-stories, lots of humor and - most interesting to me - a wonderful treatment of linguistics. The different animals have distinctive speech patterns. The moles have a slurred, slow speech. The pigeons use clipped short sentences. The mice use a more standard English. They are great read-aloud novels. Altoghether there are about 10 or 12 books in the series.
a TV show). Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was a big hit too. Right now he's totally into Shell Silverstein's "Where the Sidewalk Ends". I haven't gotten him the other Shell Silverstein ones because he's still enjoying that one so much. I was mortified when he took a green highlighter and started highlighting all his favorite poems, but I
had to let it go (with a little help from a friend) since he takes it around with him to show and read them to his friends or relatives.
I hope this is the correct address to answer this request, which I forwarded to my 12-yr-old daughter. Here are some really good books for girls from about 10-12 Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone By J.K. Rowling Alanna the First Adventure By Tamora Pierce Lioness Rampant By Tamora Pierce The Woman Who Rides like a Man By Tamora Pierce In the Hand of a Godess By Tamora Pierce Wild Magic By Tamora Pierce Wolf Speaker By Tamora Pierce In the Realms of the Gods By Tamora Pierce The Taranchela in My Purse By Jean Craighead George Julie of the Woves By Jean Craighead George Julie By Jean Craighead George Julie's Wolf Pack By Jean Craighead George Of Two Minds By Perry Nodelman and Carol Matas More Minds By Perry Nodelman and Carol Matas
| UCB Parents Home Page | UCB Parents Recommendations | UCB Parents Advice |