Thursday, March 25, 2010

Shakespeare Bats Cleanup Ronald Koertge

Shakespeare Bats Cleanup by Ronald Koertge
14 yr old Kevin is an MVP first baseball. After he comes down with mono, Kevin can't play. Stuck in the house, Kevin borrows his dads book about poetry and learns about different styles including haikus, sonnets and pastoral.
He uses the journal his dad gave him to write poems in the various styles. Kevin keeps his poetry writng a secret. He doesn't think his teammates will understand. I really liked Kevin and getting to know him through his poems. I loved watching Kevin work on his poetry.

For the record - that last poem was in couplets, which are (obviously) a couple of lines that rhyme and walk that old Shakespeare walk (which is called iambic pentameter)

It really isn't that good a poem. It's kind of in pieces, and I had to hammer in some of those rhymes just to make them fit. Maybe I got a minor league muse?

Shakespeare Bats Clean up is a novel written in free verse. Each page leads into the next, but this style gives a reader a little more freedom to pick a page at random to enjoy.

Baseball and poetry together is a beautiful thing. Perfect reading for April, poetry month and the start of a new baseball season.

Shakespeare Makes the Playoffs was released in early March. I picked up Shakespeare Bats Clean up after seeing the cover of the follow up at Guys Lit Wire in the sidebar. I really like this cover.

I've linked this post to Poetry Friday which is being hosted this week by Julie Larios at The Drift Record

For more baseball and books check out - 9 authors - 12 baseball questions

1 comment:

Mary Lee said...

Two more for the TBR pile! Thanks!