Keeping Score

Meet author

I meet linda sue park she skyped my class and I asked her a question and it was about this book its awesome!!!

I loved it!!!!!!!!!

This is one of the best books that i have ever read in my life.

The Best Book Ever!!

This is for both girls and boys who love baseball a very touching story. Everything that happens to Maggie is so interesting!! Read this BOOK! =D

Good Book...

I really enjoyed reading Keeping Score. I like baseball but I'm not a big fan. I normally wouldn't of read this book, but I had to for a school assignment. I ended up really enjoyed. It is more than just about baseball, but about friendship. Maggie becomes good friends with a man named Jim who works at the fire station with her dad and he has to leave in the war. They keep in touch through letters and baseball but then Jim stops writing and she doesn't know why. Was Jim hurt?? Nobody in the family seems to know while throughout the book Maggie is losing faith in the Dodgers because they keep coming so colose to winning the world series but not winning..... To find out what happens, read the book!

Reviewed by Marie Robinson for TeensReadToo.com

For the first half of this book, I thought the title referred specifically to the protagonist, Maggie, learning how to score a baseball game. It's 1951, Maggie is a huge Brooklyn Dodgers fan, and baseball is central to her life. She learns how to score a game when her dad's firehouse colleague teaches her.

I admit I find it frustrating that Maggie has no real desire to learn to play baseball herself. There is a brief mention of the strides that women had made with the game, including the women's league that existed during World War II, but Maggie is content to be a fan. Not that there is anything wrong with fandom, but it is energy that seems misplaced in a story about a spunky, outgoing, full-of-life girl with baseball on the brain.

The conflict finally arises when Jim, the fireman who took Maggie under his wing and taught her how to score, is drafted to Korea. At first, Maggie and Jim write letters back and forth. Then Jim's letters stop coming. Maggie is hurt and confused that her friend no longer seems to appreciate her letters.

When Maggie's father finally breaks the news that the reason Jim hasn't written is because he is at home in a catatonic state after witnessing something very bad in Korea, Maggie begins brainstorming ways that she can help make Jim "better."

First, she keeps score of his team, the New York Giants, who are rivals of her beloved Brooklyn. Then she tries prayer, also to no avail. Then she comes up with an idea that is so precious and selfless that I won't spoil it by recounting it here. But I will say that the idea is the heart of the book, and it's a shame that it took half of the story to get there.

KEEPING SCORE starts out as a story about a girl learning to score a baseball game. By the time it ends, Maggie finds herself keeping score of her own efforts to help her friend. While the adults around her realize that there is nothing she can do to help Jim, and that his illness isn't her fault, this lesson never really hits home for Maggie. She continues to accept responsibility for Jim's struggle. However, though misguided as Maggie may be at times, she is also selfless, kind, and caring. She is a dutiful daughter who not only respects her parents, but has a real affection for them. She certainly has at her core the idea that it is better to help others than to help yourself.

The story weaves in some interesting facts and information about the Korean War that will help kids better understand a time in our history. It definitely will lead readers to contract baseball fever. And, it ends with some helpful websites that readers can visit to learn to score baseball games on their own.

No text was provided for this review.

No text was provided for this review.