Mudville

It's a rare book that makes me want to play baseball. This book really captures everything about the game--the author (hi Kurtis) clearly loves the game, and it infuses every bit of every character. The rivalries, the importance of the game to this sodden town, the cultural and personal heritages caught up with baseball... every page of this book is a mash note to the sport, and I mean that in a good way.

It's not all baseball, though--there's a family story here, brotherhood and parents and general familial relationships to each other. It could be very sappy, but none of the characters are perfect--they're all flawed in their individual ways, giving even the characters with little screen time or deep importance to the plot dimension and show more earning them sympathy. It would be easy to give some of these characters no redeeming qualities, but Scaletta tempers the bad and/or neglectful behaviors with hints that these parents do love their children--they just can't be good parents, for whatever reason. Their flaws make them human.

Full disclosure: Kurtis is someone I'm proud and honored to call my friend, but I'd say these things even if he weren't. Because this is a sports book that interested me, even though I, the terminally graceless and uncoordinated, have no interest in sports, particularly baseball. I still don't fully understand in words what makes the game so great--but on a gut level, I think I understand it perfectly. show less

Like a lot of kids who have a strat-o-matic game hidden under the bed, Roy McGuire likes to analyze things with statistics. They offer a tidy way to explain away some of life’s little anomalies. Take the case of Walt Dropo, who had twelve hits in twelve plate appearances in 1952. That’s a major league record. You never, ever expect a batter to have twelve hits in twelve consecutive plate appearances. But as Roy explains it,The odds of that are like one in two million, but there’s been way more than two millions tries, if you think about all the baseball players and all the games they ever played in, so it had to happen eventually. Dropo was just the guy who did it. (pg. 7) So while it may surprise everyone else, it’s no surprise show more to Roy that it has rained in Moundville every single day for the last twenty-two years. It’s just like Walt Dropo. With all the cities in the world, and all the rainy days in history, someday there was bound to be a place where it rained every day for twenty-two straight years. It just so happens that Moundville is that place. It’s statistics.Of course, very few things in life can really be explained away so easily. And like in so many great books about baseball, a hint of magic lingers around the baseball game between Moundville and rival Sinister Bend that was rained out on the Fourth of July twenty-two years ago. When the rain suddenly stops, twenty-two years later to the day, a reply of that legendary baseball game becomes inevitable.Arriving home from baseball camp, Roy is surprised to find a strange boy in his home. His name is Sturgis, and it turns out that he is Roy’s new foster brother. And while they develop a bond as foster brothers, they are also forging a different bond - that of a pitcher and a catcher. The two boys have a complicated relationship, that can swing quickly from companionship to antagonism - which is exactly what you might expect when two young teenage boys are suddenly thrown into a house together. But things are complicated further as the boys untangle their histories, which are more intertwined than it first appears.The trio of men who live in the McGuire household are a joy to read about. Roy’s dad is a treat from his kitchen adventures - spam manicotti one night, green bean and water chestnut chili the next - to his can-do attitude. He’s the kind of guy who starts a water-redistribution business when the rains start, and switches right over to landscaping when they stop again. He is also a very sweet father, and you can see his influence in Roy’s steady leadership and dry sense of humor. Sturgis is tougher to sum up. He probably does it best himself, when the rain finally stops. Roy urges Sturgis to join him outside in the sunshine:‘Didn’t you say yourself that it would probably start up again? What if it’s the only nice day for the next twenty-two years?’‘There’s a short story like that by Ray Bradbury,’ he says. ‘It takes place on a planet where the sun only comes out for a few hours every seven years. One kid spends the whole day stuffed in a closet.’‘And you want to be that kid?’‘Yeah. I always identified with that kid.’ (pg. 63) Sturgis has had a tough life, and fitting in is not something that comes easily to him. But while he is certainly moody and sometimes aggressive, he is also hard-working, thoughtful, and extremely talented. While the plot of the book is built on some wonderful magic, the characters feel very real.Initially when I found out that the nasty rival team was from a traditionally Sioux town, and that the town had the very big-bad-guys name of “Sinister Bend,” I was worried about the portrayal of Native American characters in the book. But I’m pleased to say that those worries were unfounded - players on both sides of the rivalry were complex both in their character and in their relationships with each other. No character is without his or her flaws - even Roy’s incredibly kind and optimistic dad makes his mistakes - but even the most supremely flawed characters in this book are sympathetically human. And the relationship between the citizens of Moundville and Sinister Bend are woven together in much more complicated ways than Roy, or the reader, realizes. show less

I love books where all sorts of little elements are set in place, and then they all come together and everything fits and you just sit back and admire it. For me, Mudville was one of those books. It's got a town where it never stops raining, curses, a dad who can't cook, old rivalries, and lots and lots of baseball. And it all melds together into an engaging and surprisingly (for me) exciting story. I say surprisingly because I personally am not the world's biggest baseball fan. But because of the contagious enthusiasm of the characters, I loved it along with them in MUDVILLE. I am so glad I had the chance to read this book!

I loved this book.This is amazing because the plot revolves around baseball, and what I know about the game you could write down on one side of a single sheet of paper using large print and have plenty of room left over -- and frankly, I don't care about baseball as a rule either. So if I'd seen this book in the store, I would have skimmed right past it without giving it a second thought, dismissing it as One of Those Books for Boys Who Love Sports.I would have been wrong. And I would have missed out on a wonderful book with engaging characters, a compelling story, intriguing hints of mystery, believable human relationships, dynamic prose, and yes, interesting descriptions of baseball.

Scaletta Roy McGuire is like a lot of twelve year old boys, he loves baseball. Unlike a lot of twelve year olds he has to go to a neighboring town if he wants to play. It has rained every day in Moundville for twenty-two years straight. Some people think the town has a curse on it. Roy believes it all boils down to statistics. Roy goes away to baseball camp and when he returns he finds a foster kid living in his house. It had always been just he and his father. His mother was always jet setting around the world. Sturgis Nye has his own parental problems. He likes Roy’s dad. He always laughs at his jokes and seems to love his dad’s weird food concoctions. The one thing they have in common is baseball. Roy is a great catcher and show more Sturgis is a great pitcher. The day after Sturgis arrived the rain stopped. They go to the ball park to get it straightened up. They can play baseball now. Unfortunately the end of the rain means the end of Roy’s father’s business. His job was rainproofing houses. Things go along great until Sturgis decides to join the opposing team. I will be the first to say that I don’t care a whole lot for baseball. I played it some as a child but have never been to a professional game. I probably would not have read this book had it not been on the Cybils list. I am so glad it was. This was a great book. It was full of baseball lore yet I didn’t feel like I was reading all about baseball. The plot was so much deeper. Part of this was a coming of age story. I think this is one I will definitely purchase for my shelves. I will recommend this to all of my students and will be checking out some of this authors other books. show less

One of the biggest struggles I have is finding good books for middle school boys. "Girl" books are everywhere. There are countless blogs that review pretty much only girl books. Ones that review mostly boy books? ummm, I'm still looking. But in Mudville I have found a boy's book that I can recommend 110%. Yes it's a story about baseball (ask me how much I learned about the depth of the communication between the catcher and pitcher or the strategy of baseball!) but it's also a story about the one moment that defines you - that sets you on the path to what kind of person you will be. The main character Roy has such a moment when facing the pitcher in a game 22 years delayed.

What I liked most - Roy's pure love of the game. I am not a show more follower of baseball, but Roy makes me want to become one! His love and understanding of the game takes a bunch of kids that don't always know which way to run around the bases and makes them a team. He coaches them. Helps set up the field. Encourages them when they want to quit. And keeps them going when the entire town is watching. (Did I mention he's only 12?) They are underdogs in every sense of the word - but Roy's unfailing determination won't let them believe it - and you won't believe it either. show less

Daniel Kraus (Booklist, Mar. 1, 2009 (Vol. 105, No. 13))
Those who don’t know an RBI from an ERA should look elsewhere, but for readers who eat and sleep sports, Scaletta’s debut is a gift from the baseball gods. It centers on 12-year-old Roy McGuire, whose dreams of being a major leaguer are literally dampened by the fact that it has been raining in his hometown for 22 years. The rain began during a contest with neighboring Sinister Bend, and it ends right after Roy returns from baseball camp to find a new foster brother, Sturgis, living at his house. Their relationship is rocky, but no one can deny Sturgis’ throwing power, and soon both boys are ramping up for an epic rematch between the two towns. Various asides and in-jokes show more make clear that Scaletta is steeped not only in baseball lore but in such movie classics as The Natural and Field of Dreams, and that sort of larger-than-life magic realism lends his story the aura of a proper tall tale. Sports nuts, including reluctant readers, will sense they are in good hands with this one. Grades 4-8 show less