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28th out of 91 books
—
545 voters
Keeping Score
Both Maggie Fortini and her brother, Joey-Mick, were named for baseball great Joe DiMaggio. Unlike Joey-Mick, Maggie doesn’t play baseball—but at almost ten years old, she is a dyed-in-the-wool fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Maggie can recite all the players’ statistics and understands the subtleties of the game. Unfortunately, Jim Maine is a Giants fan, but it’s Jim who tea...more
Hardcover, 202 pages
Published
March 17th 2008
by Clarion Books
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My review is definitely biased, because I don't have the slightest interest in baseball, especially the intricacies of scoring baseball, and (sorry, sports fans among my friends) I get extremely impatient with people who care deeply about professional sports. So it's hard to know whether the meticulous detail about baseball is dull, or if that's just me. Leaving that aside, I didn't think this was nearly as polished as some of Park's other books, and it was especially lacking in characterization...more
Maggie-O, named after baseball great Joe DiMaggio, is a devoted Brooklyn Dodgers fan. It’s the 1950’s and it seems like Maggie has been hoping and praying for the Dodgers to win the World Series for her entire life. But her devotion to baseball takes a new form when Jim, a new firefighter and a Giants fan, teaches Maggie how to score baseball games. Maggie’s world takes another unexpected turn when Jim is drafted into the Korean War. At first he replies to all of Maggie’s letters, but suddenly h...more
When I was much younger, my father taught me to keep score for baseball/softball. To this day, it is still my favorite way to enjoy the game. I've been teaching my daughter as we attend and watch baseball games around the country.
Keeping score is about a young girl named Maggie who lives in Brooklyn in the 1950's. She is a Brooklyn Dodgers fan, and listens to all the games on the radio, usually with the men from the local fire department where her father works. The men all treat her like their...more
Keeping score is about a young girl named Maggie who lives in Brooklyn in the 1950's. She is a Brooklyn Dodgers fan, and listens to all the games on the radio, usually with the men from the local fire department where her father works. The men all treat her like their...more
This book is about a little girl named Maggie. Maggie is a 9-going on-10 girl, who is a huge New York Dodgers fan. She is also the daughter of Korean immigrants who live in Brooklyn. The story is set in Brooklyn between 1951 and 1955. Maggie’s dad is a fireman and Maggie often visits the firehouse. Whenever she is at the firehouse, they firemen watch the Dodgers games, and Maggie watches intently as well. Maggie becomes so involved with learning about the game of baseball. One of Maggie’s father...more
Keeping Score
by Linda Sue Park
Nonfiction
224pages
This book Keeping Score by Linda Sue park is about a girl named Maggie who loves the Brooklyn Dodgers (a baseball team). Maggie and her brother Joey-Mick were named for baseball great Joe DiMaggio. Maggie doesn't play baseball like his brother but at almost ten years old, she is a huge fan of the Brooklyn dodgers. Maggie can recite all the players' statistics and understands the subtleties of the game. Jim Maine is a Giants fan, but it's Jim who te...more
by Linda Sue Park
Nonfiction
224pages
This book Keeping Score by Linda Sue park is about a girl named Maggie who loves the Brooklyn Dodgers (a baseball team). Maggie and her brother Joey-Mick were named for baseball great Joe DiMaggio. Maggie doesn't play baseball like his brother but at almost ten years old, she is a huge fan of the Brooklyn dodgers. Maggie can recite all the players' statistics and understands the subtleties of the game. Jim Maine is a Giants fan, but it's Jim who te...more
With overtones of ‘In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson’, Park’s story focuses on the Brooklyn Dodgers of the early 1950s with the main character, Maggie, among their most ardent fans. Maggie spends considerable time with the firemen at the local firehouse where her father once worked. She sits with the firemen and Charcoal, the firehouse Labrador, and listens fervently to the games on the radio. A new fireman, Jim, a (gasp!) Giants’ fan, teaches Maggie how to keep score, which Maggie doe...more
Maggie O. (named for Joe DiMaggio) lives in a Brooklyn neighborhood that is almost entirely composed of Dodger fans. Maggie and her brother Joey-Mick are fanatics. With the help of a friend of her dad, Maggie O. learns to score each game to include the intricacies of each play and she spends great amounts of time doing just that.
The book has two or possibly three plots--despite all Maggie O.'s hopes, prayers, and score sheets, the Dodgers don't win the pennant; her mentor in scoring is drafted,...more
The book has two or possibly three plots--despite all Maggie O.'s hopes, prayers, and score sheets, the Dodgers don't win the pennant; her mentor in scoring is drafted,...more
***MINOR SPOILER****
In this book, one of the characters gets sick and Maggie is hoping and praying for him to get better. I've been thinking a lot about prayer and hope because our landlord just found out that he has colon/liver cancer. It has been a pretty bleak diagnosis...and I wonder how much to hope, how much to pray...how to believe in answers even if it isn't the one you want, and how to pray to God and accept his will, and yet not loose the hope that miracles can still happen. I like tha...more
In this book, one of the characters gets sick and Maggie is hoping and praying for him to get better. I've been thinking a lot about prayer and hope because our landlord just found out that he has colon/liver cancer. It has been a pretty bleak diagnosis...and I wonder how much to hope, how much to pray...how to believe in answers even if it isn't the one you want, and how to pray to God and accept his will, and yet not loose the hope that miracles can still happen. I like tha...more
Maggie meets Jim at the firehouse where her father used to work before being injured. Maggie goes to the fire house often to listen to the Dodgers games on the radio with the guys, until they hire a new guy, Jim, who is an avid Giants fan. Jim shows Maggie show to score a game and she gets so good at it that she's able to add her own unique touch to her scorecards. Jim is sent off to fight in the Korean War and while Maggie gets letters from Jim for awhile, the letters suddenly stop. We find out...more
Yet another girls and baseball book, this one set in the 1950s, in Brooklyn, where Maggie hangs around the neighborhood fire station and listens to Dodgers games on the radio. One of the firemen teaches her how to score games ... and then he is drafted to Korea. Maggie writes to him when he is serving overseas, but soon stops receiving letters in reply. I liked this a lot, although Maggie is supposed to be nine and I'm not sure I believed that, the character seems more like 11 or 12 in a lot of...more
Maggie Fortini,12, is a rabid baseball fan. She loves the Brooklyn Dodgers. It's the early 50's and every New Yorker roots for one of the city's teams...Dodgers, Giants, or Yankees. Maggie loves sitting with the neighborhood fireman as they listen to the games on radio. They're like family, especially Charky, the firehouse dog. All the firemen love the Dodgers, too...until Jim joins the house. He's a Giants fan!
But, Maggie and Jim form a bond as he teaches her how to keep score for the intricat...more
But, Maggie and Jim form a bond as he teaches her how to keep score for the intricat...more
During the 1951 baseball season, nine year-old Maggie learns how to fill out a scorecard from one of the guys, Jim, at her father's fire station. Maggie, a die-hard Brooklyn Dodgers fan, and Jim, a New York Giants fan, listen to Giants broadcasts that first wonderful summer of statistics keeping. That winter Jim gets drafted into the Army and is sent to serve in Korea during the war. He and Maggie keep in touch with letters about baseball. Eventually Jim stops writing back to Maggie, the Dodgers...more
my least favorite of the books I've read for the Oregon battle of the books, I was nonetheless charmed by Maggie and her passion for baseball. Scorekeeping baseball fans must be a rather small universe of the fanatic universe, and if this book hasn't inspired me to be a scorekeeper or teach my boys the art, perhaps it isn't Linda Sue Park's fault (after all, no desire to collect butterflies resulted from reading Nabokov, much though I adored the book).
The book's problem, perhaps, is that Maggie...more
The book's problem, perhaps, is that Maggie...more
This was a story told about baseball and the Korean war. The two elements were beautifully intertwined to create this wonderful historical fiction novel. This is a book that can appeal to sports lovers (especially all the technical baseball facts given), but it also focuses strongly on family relationships and the history behind the Korean war.
Maggie is a girl in Brooklyn who loves the Dodgers. She meets a the firefighter at her father's old firehouse named Jim. Jim teachers Maggie how to score...more
Maggie is a girl in Brooklyn who loves the Dodgers. She meets a the firefighter at her father's old firehouse named Jim. Jim teachers Maggie how to score...more
Historical Fiction, early 1950's. Since I am not a baseball fan I didn't think I would like this book but all of the baseball talk was actually interesting. I might even enjoy a baseball game now. Maggie keeps score of all of the Dodgers games in a notebook. Each year she buys a new notebook to score each game. I had never heard of scoring games before and found this fascinating. One of her friends goes off to fight in the Korean war and returns silent from seeing the atrocities of war. My fathe...more
The story was pleasant with a good message about hope and prayer. The problem was it was a little too pleasant. Not much happened. The heroine, Maggie at 12 is an avid baseball fan. She learns to score the games from a fireman, a friend of her dad's. The fireman, Jim, is later sent to fight in the Korean war. Maggie is good friends with him, and writes to him often telling him about the games. Then she doesn't hear from him anymore. Without spoiling the rest of the story, know that Maggie does p...more
This goes up there with In The Year Of The Boar And Jackie Robinson as one of the great kids' books about the Brooklyn Dodgers with female protagonists; it's also a really thoughtful look at the Korean War, which doesn't get a lot of page time in children's and YA lit, at least from what I've read. Maggie is a fantastic heroine and the fact that the book is built around her scorekeeping -- I am a devoted scorekeeper at baseball games -- just made it all the more lovely for me.
Also, it made me cr...more
Also, it made me cr...more
I really enjoyed this book. Linda Sue Park always manages to say something that I feel is worth sharing. Because of that, this is definitely a book I suggest. I found it very touching and very realistic. I loved Maggie, and I loved Jim. I'm not a baseball fan, however, and I felt a little weighted down by all the baseball, but the story wouldn't be the same without it. And really Park draws some interesting metaphors that run parallel through the story using baseball and Maggie's life. An incred...more
"But hope is what gets everything started. When you make plans, it's because you hope something good is going to happen. Hope always comes first."
--"Keeping Score", P. 189
This was three excellent books in one: It was a great baseball story, a great story about the Korean War from the prospective of the home front, and a great story about relationships. Linda Sue Park certainly worked her magic in these pages, and made me a believer in her as a writer. "Keeping Score" is highly memorable and d...more
It's 1951 and 12-year-old Maggie and her brother live for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Maggie follows every game on the radio, and when an adult friend down at the neighborhood fire station teaches her how to keep score, she becomes even more interested in the game. Then Jim is sent off to the Korean War. Maggie writes him regular letters, and at first he writes back, but then his letters stop coming, and Maggie is worried that something is very wrong.
This is a great portrayal of time and place, and m...more
This is a great portrayal of time and place, and m...more
I heard some really good things about this book, but honestly I was a little disappointed. It seemed very choppy. First we talk about baseball. Then we get interested in the Korean war. Then we try to use baseball to heal wounds left from war. It just didn't seem to flow as nicely as I would have liked. At the same time, it would be a great introduction to the Korean War for middle grade students. It gives just enough facts to explain the gist of what happened and there's enough baseball to make...more
This book and I had a rough start. So much baseball, so little drama for the beginning. Maggie seems so one-sided, a girl obsessed with her baseball team, and not much else. And I couldn't care less about baseball. However, the book develops into something more. Granted, it still feels more like a novella as far as characterization goes, but the themes start to run deep. Maggie is confronted by feelings of hopelessness, a war that seems to have no point, a friend who seems to have abandoned her,...more
I've been on a Linda Sue Park reading binge this week as I'll be hearing her speak at a conference later this month. I read A Single Shard when it first came out and thought it was masterful but had not searched for other books by Park. Now that I'm reading a bunch of them, I'll have to admit that Keeping Score is perhaps my least favorite. The basic storyline is solid, but the detailed info on baseball statistics bogged me down. Still, I have to impressed with Park's obvious passion for the gam...more
Keeping Score
Linda Sue Park
Non-fiction
Biography
203 pages
Keeping Score by Linda Sue Park is about a girl named Maggie who loves baseball. She always goes to the firehouse down the street from her house where her dad works to listen to the Dodgers game with the guys her dad works with. One day the firehouse gets a new firefighter named Jim and Jim and Maggie become really good friends. Jim teaches Maggie how to keep score of a baseball game. Maggie and Jim become really close and Maggie is devast...more
Linda Sue Park
Non-fiction
Biography
203 pages
Keeping Score by Linda Sue Park is about a girl named Maggie who loves baseball. She always goes to the firehouse down the street from her house where her dad works to listen to the Dodgers game with the guys her dad works with. One day the firehouse gets a new firefighter named Jim and Jim and Maggie become really good friends. Jim teaches Maggie how to keep score of a baseball game. Maggie and Jim become really close and Maggie is devast...more
I love baseball. Love it in that geeky way that even most baseball fans don't love it. I keep score when I watch games in person or on television. When I travel to the continental United States I bring my scorebook with me in case I see a game. So when I heard that Newbery laureate Linda Sue Park wrote a book about keeping score, I knew I had to read it.
Maggie is an elementary-schooler who, like almost everyone in her neighborhood in the early 1950s, is a Brooklyn Dodgers fan. She spends afterno...more
Maggie is an elementary-schooler who, like almost everyone in her neighborhood in the early 1950s, is a Brooklyn Dodgers fan. She spends afterno...more
I absolutely loved this!
When we first meet Maggie, she is nine, living in Brooklyn with her firefighter father (though, no longer on active duty because of an accident), older brother and stay at home mother. Maggie, like most of Brooklyn, is a HUGE Dodgers fan. While she doesn't play, she never misses a game broadcast (she prefers radio to TV). Perhaps her favorite place to catch a game is down at the firehouse, with her dad's old colleagues and the house dog. When a new guy joins the force (a...more
When we first meet Maggie, she is nine, living in Brooklyn with her firefighter father (though, no longer on active duty because of an accident), older brother and stay at home mother. Maggie, like most of Brooklyn, is a HUGE Dodgers fan. While she doesn't play, she never misses a game broadcast (she prefers radio to TV). Perhaps her favorite place to catch a game is down at the firehouse, with her dad's old colleagues and the house dog. When a new guy joins the force (a...more
Keeping Score is the very best kind of historical novel - one that first introduces kids to funny, dynamic characters they'll love and then brings in historical elements that are so much more meaningful as they affect the lives of those characters.
Ten-year-old Maggie Fortini loves the Brooklyn Dodgers. Loves them with a big, fat capital L. When Jim, a pal at her dad's firehouse, teaches her how to keep score, she finds a way to be an even better fan and believes she's helping the team when she k...more
Ten-year-old Maggie Fortini loves the Brooklyn Dodgers. Loves them with a big, fat capital L. When Jim, a pal at her dad's firehouse, teaches her how to keep score, she finds a way to be an even better fan and believes she's helping the team when she k...more
Jul 26, 2008
Rachael
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
baseball fans, LSP fans, Historical Fiction, families
Recommended to Rachael by:
Deliciously Clean Reads website
I found it hard to get into this at first, because the main character, Maggie, is so into baseball and I'm just not. But I really enjoy Linda Sue Park's work, so I stuck with it, and I'm glad I did. While there is a LOT of emphasis on Maggie's love of baseball, Park also explores deeper, more meaningful issues. When a friend of Maggie's is sent off to fight in Korea, she starts paying attention to what is happening in the rest of the world and finds herself asking questions she'd never before co...more
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 wome...more
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 wome...more
Maggie-O loves baseball even though she's a girl and can't play. She developes a friendship with the new fireman Jim who teaches Maggie how to score the games. Jim gets drafted into the Koren War and Maggie writes him all the time even after Jim stops writing her back. War is something Maggie can't wrap her mind around, not the why's and certainly not the people.
This is a touching story about dealing with War and how it effects people. Ms. Park puts you right in Brooklyn during the 50's. Maggie...more
This is a touching story about dealing with War and how it effects people. Ms. Park puts you right in Brooklyn during the 50's. Maggie...more
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Linda Sue Park is a Korean American author of children's fiction. Park published her first novel, Seesaw Girl, in 1999. To date, she has written six children’s novels and five picture books for younger readers. Park’s work achieved prominence when she received the prestigious 2002 Newbery Medal for her novel A Single Shard.
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Dec 26, 2008 09:08am
PS: Great boo...more
Aug 15, 2010 10:29am