Girl Wonder : A Baseball Story in Nine Innings

Did you ever hear

the story

of the

Girl Wonder?

Alta Weiss was born to play baseball, simple as that. From the age of two, when she hurls a corncob at a pesky tomcat, folks in her small Ohio town know one thing for sure: She may be a girl, but she's got some arm.

When she's seventeen, Alta hears about a semipro team, the Independents. Here's her big chance! But one look at Alta's long skirts tells Coach all he needs to know -- girls can't play baseball!

Faster than you can say "strike out!," Alta's convinced him to give her a chance. And so with the crowd buzzing and the big game up to her, Alta steps up to the pitcher's mound, determined to prove everybody wrong.

Inspired by the life of pioneering female baseball player Alta Weiss, and dramatized by Terry Widener's bold illustrations, Girl Wonder tells the unforgettable story of a true American original.

Deborah Hopkinson is the author of numerous award-winning children's books, including Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt, winner of the International Reading Association Award, Girl Wonder, winner of the Great Lakes Book Award, and Apples to Oregon, a Junior Library Guild Selection. She received the 2003 Washington State Book Award for Under the Quilt for the Night. She lives in Oregon. Visit her on the Web at www.deborahhopkinson.com.

Terry Widener is an award-winning illustrator whose picture books include Lou Gehrig: The Luckiest Man (a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book and an ALA Notable Book) and The Babe & I (a recipient of the California Young Reader Medal), both by David A. Adler, and Girl Wonder: A Baseball Story in Nine Innings (a Junior Library Guild Selection) by Deborah Hopkinson. Mr. Widener lives with his family in McKinney, Texas.