Smith's Bobby Baseball

This title (1989 was sitting on the shelves for years and checked out just once, which is really too bad. It has a low reading level and a cartoony front cover, but I have several students who will like it for the technical baseball details. There are even rosters and scores! The story of Bobby, who lives for baseball and wants to play on a team someday, but who is having problems moving up to the next league because his father is the coach. A lot of sports books like to go light on the play-by-plays and heavy on the problems, but this is lots of descriptions of playing and thinking about baseball. Will get this one checked out today.

Josepha Sherman's Gleaming Bright (1994) will be a harder sell. A rather traditional, medieval fantasy about a girl whose father and kingdom are in peril. Only she can save the day, by retrieving a magic box that was stolen by a wizard. I'm not a fantasy fan, but do love fantasies that are innovative and have a twist to them. This was fine, but lacked that spark.