Curveball: The Year I Lost My Grip

Sonnenblick, Jordan     Curveball: The Year I Lost My Grip  

Scholastic/Grolier/Childrens Press/Watts   2012  285p  17.99 978-0-545-32069-6 ms/hs    E-BN       Realistic fiction

Peter Friedman doesn’t listen to his inner voice telling him not to pitch that one final ball that destroys his pitching arm forever.  After hearing the bad news that he will not be able to play baseball anymore, he tries to hide his disability from his best friend AJ as the two enter high school.  A parallel story involves Peter’s grandfather, a wedding photographer who is trying to hide Alzheimer’s from his family. 

Life leads Peter away from sports, but new doors open for him when he turns a negative into a positive and learns to accept disappointment and change.  With his mom’s encouragement, Peter enrolls in an "Introduction to Photography" class, only to discover that the material is way below him.  He has spent so much time with his grandfather that his photography skills are quite advanced.  When he wonders across the hall to "Advanced Photography", a classmate follows him, and leads to a new partnership taking photographs for the sports section of the yearbook, as well as a new romance.  Peter’s winter is a rough one as he watches his grandfather go downhill.  The action rises with his reluctance to tell his parents about the Alzheimer’s and his inability to tell AJ that he will never be able to pitch again! 

By the time the reader reaches the climax, he/she understands that there is something special about the characters, the story and the writing style of this book.  Author Jordan Sonnenblick is brilliant at taking a simple relationship between friends and making it real.  He captures the emotions of a high-school student as if he were one himself, and that is no easy feat.  He is equally brilliant at taking the simplified themes of friendship, family and truth and  building a story around them that will resound with young readers, both male and female.  With humor, drama, and a great plot, this is an excellent book that will not stay on the shelves of a library.         

E-BN  Martha Squaresky        Sports, Baseball, Alzheimer's disease