Curveball: The Year I Lost My Grip - Softcover

Sonnenblick, Jordan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0545320704 ISBN 13: 9780545320702

Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks, 2014

Synopsis

Sometimes life's greatest accomplishments take place off the field.

There's nothing All Star pitcher Peter Friedman loves more than baseball. He breathes it, dreams it, and works his tail off to be great. Most kids are nervous about starting high school, but when you're the star athlete, girls, popularity, and all-around stud status are sure to follow.

Then a pitching accident over the summer ruins Pete's arm. If he can't play baseball in high school, what is he supposed to do? If he isn't the star pitcher, then who is he? To make matters more complicated, there's something going on with Pete's grampa -- he's acting weird and keeps forgetting important things.

The only person Pete can confide in is Angelika, the amazingly cute girl in his photography class who might like Pete as much as he likes her . . . Only, Angie doesn't know if she can date someone who can't be honest with himself, or with the people he's closest to.

About this title

About the Author:

Jordan Sonnenblick is the author of the acclaimed Drums, Girls & Dangerous Pie, Notes from the Midnight Driver, Zen and the Art of Faking It, and the sequel to Drums called After Ever After. He lives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, with his wife and two children.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

From Curveball: The Year I Lost My Grip

The next several photos are taken all in a row, click-click-click. Each is zoomed in more tightly than the one before it. The pitcher is in his windup, one arm cocked behind his head, his glove hand swinging down, across his body, toward the catcher. Then the throwing arm is whipping itsway forward in stop-time as his compact body is launched forward by the thrust of his back leg against the pitching rubber. There's a shot that freezes the action just as the ball leaves the pitcher's hand. His arm is coming straight down, and his entire body is tumbling forward. If you look past all of the moving limbs, you might be able to tell that something has gone wrong. The pitcher's face is now stretched in a grimace of agony.

In the next shot, the pitcher has fallen halfway out of the frame so that you can only see his head, his shoulders, a blur of infield, outfield, the blue sky. The photographer adjusts in a split second, swinging the camera downward just enough to center his subject in the frame one more time. Now the pitcher has tumbled to his knees, and his glove hand is pressed against the elbow of his throwing arm. Click. There's one more photo, and this one is blurred, as though the photographer is moving as the shutter opens: the boy falling forward. You can tell his face is going to hit the dirt at the foot of the pitcher's mound. You can tell it's probably going to hurt.

The photographer is my grandfather.

The pitcher is me.

About this edition

• Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0545320704
• ISBN 13: 9780545320702
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304