Holcomb Bridge Middle

I've scheduled an Atlanta-area school visit for the day my book comes out - how cool is that!? Holcomb Bridge Middle in Alpharetta has invited me to come speak to their seventh grade class about Samurai Shortstop. I'll be bringing my new bokkoto - wooden practice swords like Toyo and his father use in the book. They make me look very formidable, even though I'm not.

In other news, I also have baseball cards for Samurai Shortstop! (See picture.) I'm going to be handing these out at events in lieu of bookmarks. Pretty cool, huh?

Just 48 more days until Samurai hits the shelves!

That crashing sound you hear

That crashing sound you hear is millions of NCAA Men's Basketball Tournamet brackets smashing into pieces. Congratulations to the SEC champion LSU TIgers, who knocked off the mighty Duke Blue Devils!

This is how tournament pools are won - some blooming idiot picks someone to upset heavy favorite Duke along the way - and gets to walk in to work tomorrow and laugh at all the people who laughed at him. Meanwhile, the only people now still in contention on all those online tournamet bracket contests: LSU fans who picked the improbable upset.

Now, let's have some love for the SEC!

Books: Keeper

For the first time in a long time, I'm ahead on my reading and behind on my blogging! I have three finished books in the hopper to write about, so I better get to it . . .

I sometimes have a hard time writing about books I love. I respond to books on so many levels, that I sometimes get a little daunted trying to rave about one. I fear I won't come off as happy with a book as I really was, or conversely that I will gush and neglect to give good reasons why someone should pick a book up.

One such book I've been stuck on is Keeper, by British author Mal Peet. (Oooh - in fact, I just realized Ithe three books I've read and have yet to blog about are all by British authors. I must have England on the brain . . .)

I really enjoyed this book. One of the things I want to say about it - and I'm trying very hard here not to come off as arrogant or ego-centric - is that I hope I have accomplished with Samurai Shortstop what Peet does here with Keeper.

On the surface, Keeper is a soccer story. Goalie extraordinaire El Gato sits in a small hotel room recounting not only how he's just won the World Cup, but also how he came to be the keeper he is today.

What follows is a story filled with mystery and magic - yes, magic. We learn that as a boy, he discovered a ghostly presence in the jungle outside his small South American village, a ghost that teaches him with almost desperate authority how to be the best goalie (keeper) in the world. It's an odd premise, but the story unfolds in startling and endearing ways, eventually encompassing issues as big as deforestation and as small as leaving home and family for good.

For me, this is the ultimate kind of sports book. It escapes the cookie-cutter realm of "team is disorganized, team becomes organized, team overcomes odds to win big game." My book has these elements despite all my efforts to escape them, but I hope in the end these are not what the book is about, and instead means to a different end.

Keeper manages to break free of this mold altogether. Even winning the World Cup isn't so important that we have to re-live every moment of the "big game." It's the consequences of the game, and the keeper's development as a person and a goalie, that are far more important in the long run. By focusing on the boy and the greater issues he resolves through his keeping skills, this story transcends its own genre. It's a fantastic book to put in the hands of any boy who's ever played youth soccer, or just any boy who ever sought his place in the world on a playing field.

Samurai Gets a Starred Review

My first official review is in, and it's a starred review from Booklist!

"Growing up in Tokyo in the 1890s, after the Emperor outlawed the samurai tradition of his ancestors, Toyo was not trained in the old disciplines. He must find his own path between the old ways and the new ones, which are symbolized for Toyo by the sport he loves: baseball. In the riveting opening scene, Toyo watches his father help Toyo's beloved uncle Koji perform seppuku, a samurai suicide ritual involving disembowelment and decapitation. Soon after this disturbing event, Toyo becomes a boarder at the most esteemed high school in Tokyo. His high hopes are tempered by a brutal hazing inflicted on the entering class and the ongoing cruelty of the students in power. Under his father's tutelage, Toyo's growing understanding of traditional Samurai arts enables him to grow in skill and self-discipline both on and off the playing field. An engaging protagonist in a harsh, difficult situation, Toyo must work to earn the respect of his father and his teammates, but he will have readers' sympathies from the beginning. Unfolding through the convincing portrayals of individuals in turmoil, the story culminates as most baseball novels do-in the big game. An appended author's note discusses Gratz's research and lists his sources. A memorable chronicle of boys' inhumanity to boys, and a testament to enduring values in a time of social change." - Carolyn Phelan

Woo-hoo!

Roombas, Brackets, and Pearls

The NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament brackets were announced on Sunday, and perhaps the biggest shocker of the night came when my hometown University of Tennessee Volunteers were given the number two seed in the Washington, D.C. bracket. My dad and I had guessed they'd get a four, maybe a three seed in the tournament - and when we saw that two seed come up we lit up the phone lines. True, Tennessee has one of the highest RPI ratings - determined by the strength of your opponents - in the nation, but a two seed? This is like a hand-written invitation to proceed into the next round, because a two seed matches you with a 15 seed - in this case, mighty Winthrop, who won the Big South Conference by narrowly defeating ex-Vol head coah Buzz Peterson's Coastal Carolina by the score of 51-50. (Yes, that's a real final score.)

So of course immediately UT has become everybody's sneaky pick to be upset. We're over-rated, after all - closer to the middle of the pack than our seeding would have you think - so we're the "Goliath" that everyone thinks Winthrop or someone else can knock over.

On the flip side, if Winthrop fails to play David (or Cinderella, depending on which allegory you choose) Tennessee would then face the winner of tenth seeded Seton Hall and seventh seeded Wichita State. Could an Elite Eight match-up against the Tar Heels of North Carolina be in the offings? I'm tingly with anticipation!

No matter what Tennessee's result in the tournament, I hope the Knoxville faithful appreciate what new head coach Bruce Pearl has done for this team. With essentially the same players as last season, Pearl has turned a team that won no SEC road games and didn't even make the NIT into a number two-seeded NCAA Tournament contender. The love is back for basketball in K-town, but let's hope Pearl's early success isn't his undoing: head football coach Phil Fulmer is the winningest active college football coach in the nation, led Tennessee to its first National Championship since 1951, and yet after one losing season everyone's ready to ride him out of town on a rail. Too much success, and at the first whiff of failure the wolves start to circle.

And on a completely random note: does anyone else with a Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner find themselves sitting and staring at the thing as it works its way around the room? Sort of defeats the purpose of having a robotic vacuum cleaner if you spend the time you're not vacuuming staring at the crazy thing . . .

Now Hear This: Samurai Shortstop Audio!

A week ago, I signed the contract on an audio version of Samurai Shortstop, due this Fall from Listening Library! This is a big deal for me, because Listening Library is very selective about what they choose to make available - especially from first-time, mid-list authors like me!

A no-frills, advance sales page is now up at Amazon. Yes, the Samurai Shortstop book-on-CD can be yours for the low-low price of $45.00! I expect them to sell like hotcakes. :-)

No word yet on who will be doing the reading. I'm holding out for Ken Watanabe or George Takei (Star Trek's Mr. Sulu). A guy can dream, can't he? Ooh! Maybe I'll get Gedde Watanabe, the guy who played Long Duk Dong in Sixteen Candles and was also in Volunteers and Gung Ho! He does a lot of voice work now. Then again, I will most likely get a professional yet not-famous reader.

And for all you iPod owners out there, Listening Library will apparently also be offering a downloadable digital audio file. You can see the page for the audio download here, on the Random House site. (Random House is the distributor for Listening Library.) No word yet if it will be available as an iTunes download, but I'll let you know!

Spring is here

The first sure sign of spring: it's not the daffodils, it's the baseball players. Spring training has officially begun! In the first full slate of games today it was mostly rookies getting a turn at bat - the veterans will get their time in later, especially after the rosters are cut down - so not a lot of star power to report. My Cincinnati Reds lost their Grapefruit League opener 8-5 to the Detroit Tigers. But hey, spring training isn't about the win-loss record. (Which of course is what you say if you have a losing record in spring training.)

All-star catcher Ivan "Pudge" Rodriguez did play - and homer - for the Tigers, and then hopped a taxi over to Port St. Lucie where the Puerto Rican team is preparing for their first game in the World Baseball Classic. I'm excited about this event; it's the closest thing to a World Cup in baseball there is, and the teams aren't just made up of MLB All-stars. There are a lot of players from other national leagues, and it will be fun to learn more about them and see them play.

Play ball!