April 26, 2010
Dear Ms. Monaco
I recently finished reading Stumptown Kid by Carol Gorman. I really liked this book and would rate it 10 out of 10. It was so good that I have read it twice.
Some connections I made to this book are the love and passion that Charlie has for baseball. I like baseball just as much as Charlie and play every chance I get, just like him. I also have a best friend that loves to play and we play baseball a lot together. I play for a team like Charlie’s too. We are pretty good and are coach teaches us a lot about the sport. I also had a friend that ruined some games that we played because he would make fun of people and wasn’t taking it serious, it made me really angry when he did it and we aren’t really friends anymore.
The main character in this story is Charlie Nebraska. The setting of this story is Holden, Iowa. Charlie wants to be a great baseball player someday and make his father proud, because his father died in the Korean War, and was a hero there. Charlie is best friends with Will draft during the summer and they both want to play baseball for The Wildcats, a very good team in their area. There is another character named Brad Lobo who makes fun of Charlie at tryouts and ruins his concentration, therefore Charlie did not make the team. Charlie’s best friend, Will does make the team. Charlie then meets Luther Peale after the tryouts and he gives Charlie some pointers on pitching. Luther and Charlie become best friends, and Will leaves Charlie for the Wildcats. Charlie’s mom’s boyfriend does not like Luther because he is prejudice towards African-Americans so Charlie hates him. Luther and Charlie do everything together, so Luther tells Charlie why he came up to Iowa, Luther said “That he came here to find work because he hit a white man in the head with a fastball while he was pitching for the Memphis Mockingbirds, a minor league baseball team, and killed him. So the batters brother, Ruckus Brody, tells Luther that he is going to kill him, so the sheriff tells Luther to leave town because it was good pitch and the batter was drunk so he decided to leave town and ended up in Iowa.” Later in the story Ruckus tries to kill Luther and he ends up in jail. While he’s in jail Charlie’s mom’s boyfriend bails Ruckus out and he tries to kill him again. Luther takes off towards the river and safely escapes, but Ruckus does not he ended up drowning in the river.
The genre of this book is fiction. This was a really good fiction read. I would recommend it to all readers who like sports fiction type books. I would recommend this book because of the suspense, action, and the lesson of the story.
I didn’t like how Carl Dueker ended the story. The ending was not a good cliff hanger and he didn’t even write an epilogue or sequel. The book ends with Luther going home to Tennessee and Charlie staying in Iowa. Carol Gorman should have written an epilogue or a sequel. Either one should have told about their lives after these incidents or if Charlie played high school baseball, college, or professional.
A passage from the book that I liked was at the end “He was quiet for a second. Then he said, I love you, son. I opened my mouth, but no words came out. So I pitched myself into him and held on for a real long time.”
I liked this passage because it shows how much Charlie and Luther loved and cared about each other. It shows that Luther had in a way replaced Charlie’s dad and filled that hole in his life. Also that Charlie really wanted Luther to become his dad and teach him about baseball and do those things that fathers and sons do with each other.
I really liked this book and it will be one of my all time favorites. Except I do think that I should read some books outside these types of genres. I have only read action and sports books. Actually, the only two science fiction books I have read were Hunger Games and The Giver was the first science fiction book I have read, and I really liked the Hunger Games but I thought The Giver was strange, and weird. So I think I will try some other books. I do like Carol Gorman as an author. I have read a lot of her books, and plan to read more of them.
Sincerely,
Michael J.
