Curve Ball

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

Danakas’s first novel, a successful sports and family story, will find
a ready audience among early middle-school readers. For Torontonian Tom
Poulos, 11, summer holidays mean the excitement of being catcher for his
Little League baseball team during the playoffs. However, Tom’s
widowed, working mother, believing she cannot leave him home
unsupervised, ships a resentful Tom off to Winnipeg where he is to help
out in his Uncle Nick’s hamburger joint, the Olympic Diner. Though
Tom’s spirits rise when he discovers he can fill a catcher vacancy in
the Windsor Park Red Sox, he is intimidated by the fact that the team is
composed of bigger, stronger 12-year-olds. Tom’s hitting prowess earns
him recognition from his teammates, but he seems to be resented by star
pitcher Jeff Foster, who taunts Tom because of his inability to catch
curve balls. The dreaded pitch assumes increasing plot significance as
the Red Sox march toward the climactic championship game.

The book’s family story aspect revolves around the fate of Uncle
Nick’s diner. By opening a customer-stealing outlet across the street,
the Super Burger chain is aggressively challenging the diner’s status
as a favorite local eatery. With the assistance of the Red Sox’s best
player, Kelly Myers (a girl), Tom devises the “Great Hamburger
Taste-Off,” which pits the chain’s mass-produced burgers against the
diner’s homemade versions and thereby attracts local TV coverage.

Good characterization and strong, believable sports action make Curve
Ball a recommended purchase.