Young Adult Book Reviews

Genre:  Sports

Age Level:  12 and up

# of pages:  220 p.

RAC Book:  Yes

Michael Arroyo was born in Cuba and immigrated to the United States with his father and brother when he was younger.  His entire family is obsessed with baseball and they love living in the Bronx, which is so close to Yankee Stadium.  Michael also plays on a Little League All Stars team and they hope to go to the World Series.  Michael is a strong pitcher and a little big for his age, so as his team starts to do well other coaches feel the need to question his date of birth.  Unfortunately, Michael is not able to locate his birth certificate, which causes some problems for him and his team.

Meanwhile, Michael and his brother, Carlos, are hiding a terrible secret that they are afraid will break their family up.  Despite the fact that Michael doesn’t seem to have anything going right in his life, he always has his friends and baseball to get him through.  He wonders whether he will get to continue to play baseball or if his dream will end forever over a dispute about his age.  This was a good sports story, but it also shed some light on difficult issues like immigration and poverty.  Boys will be a fan of this book.