Bat 6

by Virginia Euwer Wolff Narrated by Various

Overview

Bat 6-that's the softball game played every year between the sixth-grade girls of Barlow and Bear Creek Ridge. All the girls-Beautiful Hair Hallie, Manzanita who gets the spirit, the twins Lola and Lila, Tootie, Shadean-they've been waiting for their turn at Bat 6 since they could first toss a ball.
This time there's a newcomer on each team: Aki, at first base for the Ridgers, who just returned with her family from a place she's too embarrassed to talk about. And Shazam, center field for Barlow, who's been shunted around by her mother since her father was killed on December 7, 1941.
The adukts of the two towns would rather not speak about why Aki's family had to “go away.” They can't quite admit just how “different” Shazam is. And that is why the two girls are on a collision course that explodes catastrophically on the morning Bat 6, the day they've been preparing for all their lives.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Wolff's (Make Lemonade) ambitious but ultimately unsuccessful novel explores prejudice via a baseball game between the sixth grade girls of Bear Creek Ridge and Barlow Road Grade Schools on May 28, 1949. "Now that it's over, we are telling. We voted to, it's fairer than not," begins Tootie, the catcher for Bear Creek Ridge, in what appears to be the start of a series of flashback testimonials. But not all of the 21 girls' accounts adhere to this format, and readers never discover whom the girls are addressing. Some of the characters speak only a few times, and since readers never get to know them, their voices run together in a miscellany. The actual conflict, when Shazam, whose father died at Pearl Harbor, in a run to first base, assaults Aki, the Japanese first baseman,occurs more than halfway through the book. The most distinct voices belong to Shazam (who speaks in a stream-of-consciousness style, "Sneaky Japs never warned nobody they snuck behind our backs dropped bombs right in my fathers ship the Arizona he was down in it without no warning") and to Aki, whose perspective is markedly different from the other girls'. Shazam exposes much of her troubled background through her narratives, and Aki reveals some fascinating cultural details as well as provides insight into life in an internment camp. However, because readers are only acquainted with the two through a few lengthy accounts interspersed among the other 19 girls, the change in both of them (especially in Shazam) at story's end seems sudden and hollow. While readers cannot help but admire the stalwart Aki, they will likely walk away from this book trying to make sense of who these characters were and what they were trying to say. Ages 10-13. (May)

School Library Journal

(Gr 5-7) - Since the turn of the century, two rival Oregon farm communities have put their differences behind them and come together once a year to watch their sixth-grade girls' teams play softball. In the spring of 1949, the "50-year girls" excitedly anticipate their moment of glory. Bat 6 is their story, reconstructed just after it happened. The narrative is comprised of firsthand reporting from girls on both sides. This year, each team has a ringer. For the Bear Creek Ridge Mountaineers, it's Japanese-American first-baseman Aki, whose family has just moved back to the community after spending most of the war years in an internment camp. The Barlow Pioneers' marvel is their center fielder who calls herself Shazam, a troubled youngster who does everything, except her schoolwork, with an unsettling, single-minded intensity. Her father was killed at Pearl Harbor and she has maintained a deep-seeded hatred of the Japanese ever since. In the book's pivotal scene, Shazam violently attacks Aki during the big game, and play (and time itself, for that matter) is suspended. The period details and use of the vernacular are right on the money and always reflect the adolescent female point of view. At some point comes the liberating realization that it isn't necessary to keep the multiple voices straight and that the well-crafted account has taken on a life of its own. Wolff delves into the irreversible consequences of war and the necessity to cultivate peace and speaks volumes about courage, responsibility, and reconciliationall in a book about softball. Luann Toth, School Library Journal

Horn Book Magazine

Set against the backdrop of a softball game played between two small rural towns in Oregon in 1949, this novel reveals, among other things, the lingering aftereffects of war. The sixth-grade girls from Barlow and Bear Creek Ridge have spent the year practicing for a softball game that has been an annual event since 1900. Now, during the fiftieth anniversary game, an incident occurs that upsets the sanguine assumptions of the citizens. The central action revolves around Shazam, a deeply troubled girl whose father was killed at Pearl Harbor and who has been nursing an abiding hatred for the Japanese ever since, and Aki, a Japanese-American girl. Aki and her family have recently returned home after spending the war years in an internment camp. Early in the game (but late in the novel), Shazam attacks Aki, injuring her severely. The game ends abruptly, and all the players -and many of the adults- are left to wonder what share of the responsibility they bear. The story is narrated in brief first-person retrospective accounts from all twenty-one girls on both teams, and it is sometimes difficult to distinguish one voice from another. But the characters are engaging for the most part, and while Aki's characterization seems a bit too stereotypical, Shazam is a complex and compelling protagonist. Wolff's evocation of period and place, on the other hand, is indisputably masterful. The questions she raises about war, race, and cherished beliefs are difficult and honest and a welcome antidote to more romanticized versions of the years following the "last good war."

Kirkus Reviews

In Bear Creek Ridge and Barlow, two small Oregon towns, everyone is looking forward to the Bat 6 girls' softball game of 1949. Both towns make plans to cheer the sixth graders on, all in the name of good, clean fun. This simple, small-town portrait of Americana is shattered, however, when a racial incident occurs at the 50th annual game: One player, Shirley, whose father was killed at Pearl Harbor, slams her elbow into the face of Aki, a Japanese-American. It brings the game to a halt, and inspires the townspeople to debate and examine what exactly has gone wrong in the years since WW II ended. Guilt hangs over both towns: Could anyone have prevented the incident? Shirley had not concealed her hatred of "Japs," yet no one had believed that such a troubled girl would act on her feelings. Through the first-person narrations of the 21 girls of the two teams, the story emerges, and while few of the voices are truly distinct, their emotions and perspectives ring true. Wolff (Make Lemonade, 1993, etc.) is especially deft in creating a transforming, bittersweet post-war atmosphere and winning portraits of members of the communities who support, respect, and encourage their young girls, but come to question their own roles in the tragedy. (Fiction. 12-14)

Product Details

BN ID:	2940172222085
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	06/09/2009
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	8 - 11 Years

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