Keeping Score, Linda Sue Park
Keeping Score, Linda Sue Park
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Keeping Score

Author: Linda Sue Park

Narrator: Julie Pearl

Unabridged: 4 hr 34 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/13/2008


Synopsis

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 teaches Maggie the fine art of scoring a baseball game. Not only can she revisit every play of every inning, but by keeping score she feels she's more than just a fan: she's helping her team.

Jim is drafted into the army and sent to Korea, and although Maggie writes to him often, his silence is just one of a string of disappointments—being a Brooklyn Dodgers fan in the early 1950s meant season after season of near misses and year after year of dashed hopes. But Maggie goes on trying to help the Dodgers, and when she finds out that Jim needs help, too, she's determined to provide it. Against a background of major league baseball and the Korean War on the home front, Maggie looks for, and finds, a way to make a difference.

Even those listeners who think they don't care about baseball will be drawn into the world of the true and ardent fan. Linda Sue Park's captivating story will, of course, delight those who are already keeping score.

About The Author

Linda Sue Park is the author of A Single Shard, winner of the Newbery Award. She has also written Project Mulberry, When My Name Was Keoko, The Kite Fighters, and Seesaw Girl. She lives with her family in Rochester, New York.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Wendy on December 10, 2008

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 meticul......more

Goodreads review by pearl ♡ on April 19, 2023

The ending was so sweet and the story's setting was interesting! The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars because of how slow the beginning was.......more

Maggie is a huge baseball fan, especially of the Brooklyn Dodgers, and almost never misses a game. Her favorite memories are sitting at the firehouse with the workers who she's known for years, listening and cheering as their favorite players score. Then a new fireman, Jim, comes, and Maggie forgive......more

Goodreads review by Laela on December 06, 2009

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......more

Goodreads review by Megan on March 11, 2024

This was a childhood fav and the nostalgia really hit and it absolutely holds up. Still meets criteria for books I enjoy today: sports, historical fiction, learned a little something new. Inspired me to write a letter to my childhood librarian thanking her for recommending it to me......more