Keeping Score (by Linda Sue Park)

Maggie Fortini has been a fiercely loyal Brooklyn Dodgers fan for as long as she can remember. But since her own brother, Joey-Mick, doesn't take her interest in baseball seriously, she finds an ally and friend in Jim, the fireman at her dad's work. It's Jim who teaches her to record baseball statistics, or "keep score." For a long time, Maggie's ups and downs come with the Dodgers' wins and losses until the Korean War begins and a thing like baseball begins to seem, well, more important than ever.

You don't have to like baseball to be a fan of Linda Sue Park. But if you read her Newbery Award-winner A Single Shard, you probably already are. Her semi-autobiographical novel KEEPING SCORE cleverly juxtaposes the rivalry among three '50s New York baseball teams against the conflict of the Korean War.

Through the eyes of Maggie, Park creates a detailed world of 1950s Brooklyn. As readers, we only know what Maggie knows and so events such as the Korean War and even Dodgers games that have long since become legend still play out with suspense. We also experience the frustration of being a kid, when your only information about life comes from adults who don't always tell you the whole truth. Thus, the fact that Maggie doesn't understand the reasons behind the Korean War is made especially poignant when we realize that the adults around her who have all the facts probably don't understand it either.

Author: Linda Sue Park
Publisher: Clarion Books
Publication date: March 17, 2008
Number of pages: 208
Hardcover price: $16.00
Read Aloud: 9
Read Alone: 9