A little confusing with the changing narrative but overall a powerful and complex piece of historical fiction. ( )

What would it be like to be taken from your home and locked away during the second world war, simply because you are of Japanese decent? What would it be like to then return home after the war has ended?

This book focuses on the second question through the eyes of many middle school age girls with powerful and complex answers.

Lexile: 930 ( )

This is a great story that is set during WWII on the homefront in California. The story is written around an annual softball game that is played every year between the 6th Grade girls from Bear Creek Ridge Grade School and Barlow Road Grade School.This year the game takes place in the aftermath of World War II. Each team has a new member.Aki is on the Ridgers and Shazam is playing for the Barlow team. They come from different places with secrets and fears and are and on a collision course that explodes on the morning of Bat6.

This may not be a fair review. I have a few issues with Bat 6. You have been warned.

Bat 6 is the story of how racism hit home following World War II in small town rural Oregon. Every year, the sixth grade girls in the rival towns of Bear Creek Ridge and Barlow Road have a softball game. It's a big deal. Everyone in both towns comes to see the game. The girls spend the entire school year practicing for it. It's meant to bring the two communities together, to inspire good sportsmanship, and to build the character of the girls and everyone who attends.

In 1948 two new girls arrive. Aki is not really new--her family was sent to a relocation camp along with most of the Japanese Americans living in the western half of America. They are trying to restart their orchards. "After a few minor incidents, Aki's family is re-integrated into the town. Everyone is basically embarrased by what happend to them and anxious to leave the past in the past. Shazam, Shirley to her teachers, is on the new girl on the other team. She has come to live with her grandmother because her own mother is not capable of supporting her and her father, a sailor, was killed when Pearl Harbor was bombed. Though she is a difficult person, the girls on her team try to help Shazam adjust to her new home.

This should be a good review. The book is well written, well intended. It does not sugar-coat the issues it deals with nor does it resort to preaching. The characters are strong, and the suspenseful plot holds the reader's interest as the story builds to a thought provoking climax. But I still have a few issues.

I find it hard to believe that none of the girls besides Shazam have any problems with Aki. Nor do any of their parents. There is set of fathers who will not speak to each other becuase one was a conscientious objector while the other fought in the war. I find this well within believabitily. But I find it hard to accept that the only other character in town with any significant prejudice against Aki and her family is Shazam. It's only 1948.

Which brings me to my second problem with Bat 6. The prejudiced character, Shazam, is dirt poor, the product of an absent single mother, probably emotionally disturbed and mentally handicapped. While she is an excellent ball player, she cannot learn her multiplication tables. The rest of the girls have no issues with prejudice. While they are not all wealthy, they are the product of well adjusted, two parent families and none of them are as poor as Shazam's grandmother. That Shazam is the only "bad" girl in the lot is problematic at least. It makes the novel imply that only certain types of people carry racial hatred. If your parents are good people like us, you won't be prejudiced. This has not been my experience with prejudice.

Lastly, why do YA authors and publisher insists on using multiple voices in their novels? Every girl on both teams takes a turn narrating Bat 6. Even adult readers find this device confusing. It's the thing I hate most about Bleak House. Time and again my students have told me they don't like multiple narrators because it confuses them. Even with a relatively easy read like No More Dead Dogs, the mulitple narrators serve to confuse and irritate many middle school readers.

Please stop it. The sixth and seventh grade students in room 29 implore you. ( )

Takes place in Oregon in 1949/50 when two rival girls softball teams come together, Under current is that one of the girls has just come back from a Japanese internment camp and the father of a girl on the other team, was killed in Pearl Harbor.