Shakespeare Bats Cleanup

Baseball and poetry squashed together – it’s like he wrote it just for me! I was surprised by how moving I found this one. Really great, funny voice – I don’t see enough of these good ones for the teen boys on the younger side. ( )

In Bed
Being sick is like taking a trip, isn’t it
Going to another country, sort of.
A country nobody wants to visit.
A country named Fevertown.
Or Virusburg. Or Germ Corners.

So starts the wonderful Shakespeare Bats Cleanup, a novel in verse by Ron Koertge. Fourteen year old Kevin Borland is sidelined from his baseball team with a bout a mono…monouglyosis. His father, a novelist, gives him a ‘marbly black-and-white notebook’, you know, the kind you used in third grade and suggested he try writing, nothing formal. Hey, baseball players don’t write. But laid up in bed with nothing to do, Kevin starts to scribble. He then goes down to his dad’s library and borrows a book on poetry. What the heck, he’ll give it a try.

The result is Kevin’s attempts, some of them silly, some serious. Kevin reminisces about his mother who passed away. His mind rambles about the girls he’s dated

Confession
I liked Sherry Toi
because
she
liked
me
first.

or how the guys on the team treat him now that he’s sick or will a car salesman sell a convertible to a geeky guy. He tries his hand at haikus and sonnets and couplets and the sestinas (which I won’t even try to explain to you).

What’s great about Shakespeare Bats Cleanup is that the poems are everyday poems. The sonnets don’t sound like Shakespeare. Who knows what a pantoum is supposed to sound like, anyway? The subjects of his verse are everyday occurrences. If you can believe it, poetry made Kevin a better baseball player. And who knows, if you try writing poetry, you might get a girlfriend, like Kevin did, because poets are sensitive and girls like that. So, enjoy Shakepeare Bats Cleanup. Enjoy the poetry and story and maybe, just maybe, you’ll learn something about poetry too. You can’t go wrong. And stay tuned for my review of Shakespeare Makes the Playoffs, coming soon. ( )

This book is half story, half poetry. A boy plays with poetry while he recovers from mono. It is aimed at about middle school age kids.

I thought that the book was really clever, and the poetry was actually pretty good quality (though it was also trying to sound like a middle schooler could have wrote it - a tricky balance). I'm not sure how much kids would appreciate it - half the fun I had was from knowing all the types of poetry he was trying out and seeing how well (or not) he fared with them. ( )

Anthony Gonzales
EDCI 4120

Koertge, R. (2003). Shakespeare Bats Cleanup. Massachusetts: Candlewick.

Grade Levels: 7-8
Category: realistic fiction
Read-Alouds: pp. 1-7 (Introduction), 15-19 (Kevin borrows his fathers book and begins writing), 36-44 (Kevin finds his emotional side), 63-66 (Kevin is not playing baseball and is writing more), 71-75 (Kevin meets Maria), 106-116 (Conclusion).

Summary: Kevin Boland was a baseball star. He played first base and his life revolved around baseball, until he caught mononucleosis. Kevin’s father was a writer, so when he was sick and lying in bed, his father gave him a composition notebook to try and write. Kevin was hesitant about the idea at first, but he gets into writing poetry. He would sneak into his father’s den and read a book about how to write poetry. He learned to write and he enjoyed it. When he was well and able go get back to school, he continued to write, and he tried to hide it. Because he was out so long, he had to sit on the bench and watch his team play, so he took his notebook to games and wrote. His coach looked down on him because he was not paying attention to the game. He even tried hiding it from a girl he met, Mira, who discovers his writing. She soon falls for him, but she leaks out to everybody that was beginning to write, so he is made fun of on the baseball field. He didn’t care because he learned to express his emotions and found a girl that he could share his writing with.

Themes: This novel can really help show students how interesting reading and writing can be, especially for young students. For the males, who I leaned tend to be more resistant to reading, can show them how women react to a sensitive side. A teacher could use this novel in a classroom also to show how a star athlete can fall in love with writing and English. It’s a great motivator for students who feel writing is “wussy” or “just for girls”. This novel also discusses death, because Kevin had lost his mother, and this is source to some of his writing. This issue may be important to someone who has lost a parent or grandparent, just to show how others react and that they are not the only ones who feel hurt by a loss and that it is not the end of the world.

Discussion Questions:
Why did Kevin decide to start writing?
Why did Kevin try to hide his writing abilities?
In the end, was Kevin a better person after writing? Why or why not.

Reader Response: This novel was a shorter read, but I really connected with this novel. I used to play baseball when I was younger, but had to quit due to injury. I know what it’s like to be around a bunch of teenage boys who may think that writing is for girls or wants nothing to do with it. There was a point where I was very resistant to reading and writing, but I had an English teacher that changed that for me; kind of like Kevin’s mono. This English teacher not only gave us material that was interesting, but he made me write and he pointed out my weakness and strong points. It was my freshman year in high school that I began writing poetry. I love writing poetry now and this last year in college, I teamed up with one of my buddies and I help him write country love songs. Two songs that we have written are going into a studio and copyrighted this next year. If my friend ever gets successful, he said I would receive profit form every song sold I helped him write. I’m not giving high standards or hopes in his success, but its always fun hearing him sing the song and hear how much people love the song. ( )

Kevin Boland is a first baseman who gets sidelined with a case of mono. His Dad gives him a journal and out of complete boredom, he begins to write in it. Is it possible to be a poet and a ball player?

Other books to try: Jump Ball: A Basketball Season, Split Image

Other books by this author: Brimstone Journals, Stoner and Spaz ( )