Samurai Shortstop
Penguin Young Readers Group · Print & ebook · February 14, 2008
A Historical Fiction pick for readers exploring Samurai Shortstop.
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- Who it’s for
- A boarding-school sports story with room for questions about family, belief, and a changing Japan.
- Themes
- Tradition and modernization, Father-son relationship, Grief and remembrance
- Genres
- Baseball & Softball, Historical YA - Asia, Values & Choices
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Start with this bookAbout this book
Tokyo, 1890. Toyo is caught up in the competitive world of boarding school, and must prove himself to make the team in a new sport called besuboru. But he grieves for his uncle, a samurai who sacrificed himself for his beliefs, at a time when most of Japan is eager to shed ancient traditions. It's only when his father decides to teach him the way of the samurai that Toyo grows to better understand his uncle and father.
Continue reading
And to his surprise, the warrior training guides him to excel at baseball, a sport his father despises as yet another modern Western menace. Toyo searches desperately for a way to prove there is a place for his family's samurai values in modern Japan. Baseball might just be the answer, but will his father ever accept a Western game that stands for everything he despises?
Tradition Meets Baseball
A boarding-school sports story with room for questions about family, belief, and a changing Japan.
Come here for
- Baseball and samurai values sharing the same field
- A young athlete caught between generations
Expect
- A historical coming-of-age story set in 1890 Tokyo
- Sport braided with questions of loyalty and change
Where it sits
| Historical YA - Asia | 100% |
|---|---|
| Values & Choices | 63% |
| Baseball & Softball | 51% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Historical YA - Asia
- Values & Choices
- Baseball & Softball
- Authors
- Alan M. Gratz
- Publisher
- Penguin Young Readers Group
- Published
- February 14, 2008
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Theme
- Tradition and modernization · Father-son relationship · Grief and remembrance
- Reading lane
- Historical YA - Asia