Thumb on a Diamond

by Ken Roberts, Leanne Franson (Illustrator)

Overview

A Horn Book Fanfare Top Ten List selection and an SSLI Honor Book

Thumb and Susan come up with an ingenious plan that will take all of the village's nine school-aged kids on the trip of a lifetime. They'll form a baseball team, win the regional title and qualify to be sent to the provincial championships in Vancouver, courtesy of the school board.

Never mind that none of them has ever played baseball before. Never mind that there are no other teams to compete for the regional championship. Never mind that the village is not even wide enough to accommodate a baseball diamond.

With a lot of ingenuity and a little grownup help, including the advice of a shipwrecked British children's writer-cum-cricket-expert named Mr. Entwhistle, the New Auckland Beavers go into training and start packing their bags. But what will happen when they get to Vancouver? Will they be humiliated by the toughest teams in the province?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781554981663
Publisher:	Groundwood Books Ltd
Publication date:	02/17/2006
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	128
Lexile:	780L (what's this?)
File size:	3 MB
Age Range:	8 - 10 Years

About the Author

Ken Roberts is the author of several popular books for young readers. He is chief librarian of the Hamilton Public Library and lives with his family near Brantford, Ontario.
Leanne Franson is a children's book illustrator who was born in Regina, Saskatchewan and who lives now in Montreal. Visit Leanne Franson's website: http://leannefranson.com/

Editorial Reviews

Gr 4-7-An unlikely baseball story begins to unfold when Mr. G. H. Entwhistle's rowboat makes it into a remote fishing village on the coast of British Columbia. A group of kids including the narrator, a boy best known as Thumb, take the Englishman to their town, population 138. It is then that the nine children come up with a plan for a school-sponsored visit to a big city. And Mr. Entwhistle, author and illustrator of the "Bobby and Bernice Beaver" books, assumes a role as unique as his outfit on the foggy day his boat came to the village. The kids realize that they have enough players for a baseball team. Although they've never played the game, they make creative decisions and preparations for the provincial championship in Vancouver, supported by Thumb's father, the schoolmaster. The trip has surprising results while allowing the players to experience a big city, so different from their hometown, which has 42 buildings and no roads. Thumb's voice is wise, allowing humor to arise from his observations of others and their responses to sights and events. The setting is both familiar and exotic; the children are geographically isolated but research baseball and more via the Internet. The characters are appealing and the plot unfolds naturally to create a satisfying and plausible story. Thumb, as an adult, no longer lives in New Auckland but returns with his children to view the trophy and carry on an old family baseball tradition.-Maria B. Salvadore, formerly at Washington DC Public Library Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

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