The Only Game by Mike Lupica

  

    

• Genre:  Sports - Baseball
• Grade Level: 4th - 6th
• Reading Level: 5.0 (9 points)
• Length: 320 pages
• Publisher:  Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers (February 17, 2015)
• My Rating: 3 out of 4
• Readability: If you love baseball talk... this book is great.  I skimmed most of the book when they started describing the games.
• Division: Crossover 
• Summary:  Sixth grade is supposed to be the year that Jack would lead his team to the Little League World Series, but after the death of his brother, he loses interest in baseball, and only Cassie, star of the girls' softball team, seems to understand. Book #1 in Home Team Series

I buy all of the the Mike Lupica books. He is a sure bet for a sports book that boys will like. This series should be another winner.  Since I am not a sport person, the play by plays of the games just bore me and I let myself skim through them. This book gave me a lot of skimming! If you are a sports announcer, as the author is, I imagine this is his wheelhouse. 

I found the first hundred pages very interesting as the characters were being developed.  I loved Cassie, the star of the softball team.  She is feisty and a strong leader. The other character, Teddy, who was being teased and lacked confidence in sports was also interesting. These characters, along with Jack's best friend Gus, appear in all of four of the series. 

I gave this book a 3 because I would recommend it as a good read to kids who loved sports. I really like the characters but would have liked to have more story about them instead of the baseball games. If I was reading this for myself, I would have quit! Just too much baseball talk.