Senor Parrot's Perch

New cover image for the retitled book and series: Sluggers #1: Magic in the Outfield

Original cover and title for book: Barnstormers: Game 1

Magic in the Outfield (Sluggers) is the exciting and mysterious first book in the Sluggers: Three Kids, A Mystery, and a Magic Baseball series for kids. You may find this titled Game 1 (Barnstormers), which is the original name for the series. The authors, both baseball lovers, are series originator Loren Long, also very well known for his outstanding work  illustrating books, and Phil Bildner, author of Shoeless Joe & Black Betsy, as well as several other books on baseball that kids will love.

The story begins with Griffith, his sister Ruby, and young brother Graham, and a strange baseball with an odd hole nearly all the way through it. Unlike any other baseball they’d seen, it was something their dead father had carried with him during the war.  Now the ball was a reminder that they were still a family, a symbol of togetherness. They’re traveling with their mother, and eight men, a traveling baseball team, that earns its living by playing teams from the different cities they visit.

They stop first in Cincinnati, where bizarre things happen during the game, things they and their team can see, but no one else can. Is their father’s old baseball some connected to all these strange events?

I first heard about this book over at Boys Read Boys Rule! where Carl and the others have been raving about it. And now its my turn to rave. Magic in the Outfield (Sluggers) is nearly impossible to put down as the mystery mounts with every page. This book is exceptionally well written. The illustrations are amazing. The action is fast and the mystery runs high. You’ll love the characters, the team members, the mother, the children’s uncle, and especially Griffith, Ruby and Graham. You’ll want them all, too. I’m heading out this weekend for the next one in the series.

Both baseball buffs, Bildner and Long have reached back into history to describe the game as it was played in the late 1800′s. Their love of the game comes through in the great descriptions and drawings of the big game between The Travelin’ Nine and the local Cincinnati team and they incorporate the jargon that was current for the time, adding a nice sense of the times that helps you experience the game as it was played back then.

George’s Secret Key to the Universe

by Lucy Hawking and Stephen Hawking with Christophe Galfard

Illustrated by Garry Parsons

Novelist Lucy Hawking has teamed up with her famous father, astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, to write a terrific science fiction book for kids and middle grade readers. They get further assistance from Christophe Galfard and the book is illustrated by Garry Parsons. Their first effort is George’s Secret Key to the Universe. Within the framework of this novel the Hawkings have managed to create a very fun story that includes the latest fantastic facts about the universe and theories of its origin. Together they present an amazing amount of knowledge at a level that anyone can understand. Unlike much science fiction, which is really fantasy with a few smatterings of highly speculative and dubious science, with this book we have real science.

Next door to George’s home stands an old abandoned house, its yard and structure long neglected after the old man who had lived there disappeared. One night George pursues his pet pig, which had broken through a hole in the fence, into the overgrown yard. He sees lights are on and his pig has just dashed into the house through an open door. As he catches his pig, he is discovered by a girl, a bit younger, but close to his own age, who is not the least bothered by the pig.  She is Annie. George soon meets the girl’s father, Eric, also not bothered by the presence of the pig.

George discovers that his new neighbors have a secret. Not an evil secret, but a fantastic secret of great power. They possess the most powerful (more…)