In addition to facing the reality that his older brother's cancer treatments may not go as successfully as he would wish, Matt Bainter's day-to-day life is also in turmoil after moving to a new town, joining the school's horrible baseball team, and ending up in a major slump of his own. Reprint.
Matt is a teenager who plays baseball. His brother tommy has cancer and to watch over his brother he has to transfer to a whole different middle school to watch over his brother so matt alows that to be a motivation for him and he lets it push him to do bigger and better things. I suggest this book to anyone from the age of 9 and up who likes sports books its a great book with alot of descriptive details anyone who likes that this a perfect book for them.
A book that probably would appeal at first glance to boys who like to read sports books, grades 5-8. Matt is a center fielder and batsman who moves with his mom and older brother temporarily as 19 year old Tom goes through cancer treatments. Slim and quickly read, I'm afraid it lacks good play-by-play action, though kids may be drawn quickly into its story of a boy whose "everything is just fine" optimism finally falters in the face of his brother's increasingly desperate fight against illness. Sonnenblick did it better in Drums, Girls and Dangerous Pie, but Zinnen's ambiguous ending might be more true.
This book was just ok, in my opinion. The play by play baseball writing was hard to follow. I felt sad for the main character, Matt, because his brother had cancer and he had to move to a different house and school to accommodate his brother's last resort treatment.
This is a juvenile book that has a reading level of 4.8. There is a lot of taking God's name in vain and a reference to fooling around. It is an easy read and I read it in a few hours.