Baseball in April is written by Mexican American author Gary Soto. The book is a collection of short stories that describe the author's own experiences growing up in the central valley of California. Each story is narrated by Latino teenagers who are in love,have dreams, make mistakes,and move through everyday life. Even with the Latino influence, the conflicts and feelings expressed are universal. Whether it is the joy of receiving a new doll, the anxiety of trying out for the Little League team, or the desire to stand above the crowd readers will be able to connect to the book.
In Baseball in April, each short story has a strong theme, making this a great cultural resource for teaching theme. Themes portrayed in the book include friendship,love, youth and growing up, and success versus failure, and standing out. Baseball in April can be used for teaching both Hispanic/Latino culture and theme. For example in the short story titled Baseball in April, you can open with a brief history of Mexican professional baseball. The bilingual text is also a comprehensive guide that features statistics of every player on the Mexican Baseball League since 1937. You can also discuss what it means to be apart of a team to touch on the theme. Readers can also research a famous Latino/Hispanic baseball player and create a digital flyer or brochure. Baseball in April can be used to describe how cultures have changed or not changed in theme and content over a period of time.
Publisher's Weekly:Diaz and Gongora give Soto's heartfelt collection just the right spark of Latino flavor in this sharp audio production. From Jesse, a nine-year-old struggling to improve his baseball skills in ""Baseball in April"" to Veronica, who is crushed when her new, much cherished Barbie doll is ruined, Soto introduces vivid characters who struggle with the longing, hope and acceptance that are part of everyday life. Soto's accessible writing voice and poetic language permeate these 11 tales of first dates, worries about one's looks and the difficulties of dealing with idiosyncratic family members. With the help of solid performances (and crisp pronunciation of the smattering of Spanish words and phrases) by Diaz and Gongora, listeners will take away a real sense of what it was like for many Mexican-American kids growing up in California's Central Valley (including Fresno, Soto's hometown) not so many years ago. Ages 10-up
Kirkus Reviews:
Eleven affectionate glimpses of young people, most of them Hispanic, amid the trials and triumphs of daily life in their California neighborhoods. Coping with small adversities is the common theme here. Veronica's cherished new Barbie doll has lost its head, but she lovingly carries it to bed anyway. Alfonso nervously prepares to go riding with a girl and his bike chain breaks. As Manuel is lip-synching ""La Bamba"" for the talent show, the record sticks. In the title story, Michael and his younger brother Jesse find an alternative when they fail--again--to make Little League. Lupe's shyness melts when she discovers that she can beat anyone, girl or boy, at marbles. Though some of these episodes seem to trail off, their humor is unforced, and the characters (ranging from middle-graders to adults) are drawn with realism and sympathy. Soto salts the natural-sounding dialogue with Spanish words and phrases (a vocabulary list is given at the end), and binds the stories together with webs of close family ties.
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