Painting the Game

January 22, 2024
The late Newbery Medalist blends themes of baseball and painting with loving family and friends in this slim work—her final novel—about the daughter of a minor-league pitcher and a painter seeking courage and her own path to pursuing her dreams. Eleven-year-old Lucy’s mother explains that Lucy’s father is “trying to paint the game. Like me painting a picture. Trying to make the game come out the way he wants.” But when Lucy stands on the pitching mound, it’s “the scariest place I’ve ever been.” Determined to find the courage to overcome her fear, she secretly practices pitching in pre-dawn hours, choosing to perfect her father’s
signature knuckleball. In this quiet story, everybody has a secret as well as encouraging partners: for Lucy, it’s her friends Tex and Robin, who coach her in private. Affectionate, conflict-free relationships and myriad expressions of support and respect among the compassionate characters nudge the tale toward sentimentality, but Lucy’s gentle, understated narration and persistence toward her goal keep it grounded in authenticity. All characters other than a Puerto Rican–born adult present as white. Ages 8–12.

February 15, 2024
Grades 3-6 Eleven-year-old Lucy Chance adores both her parents: Mom, a painter, and Dad, a minor league baseball pitcher. Lucy spends her summer playing for her school's baseball team (the Yard Goats, named for the goats that live next to the diamond) and secretly developing her own pitching skills, particularly the very tricky knuckleball. When Dad is invited to join the Red Sox, Lucy is offered the opportunity to throw out the first pitch at his first major league game, and she wonders if she is up to the challenge. This final middle-grade novel from the late, Newbery-winning author MacLachlan offers her signature lyric language delivered in spare but satisfying prose. Lucy and the other characters (particularly Dad's catcher-partner, Edgar, and his talented dog, Ruby) are well-developed and complex, and information about the psychology behind baseball strategy is deftly woven into the narrative. Although there's not much conflict beyond the well-meant secrets that Lucy and her family keep from one another, this will appeal to baseball fans and those looking for warm family dynamics.

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May 1, 2024
This posthumously published final novel from the Newbery-winning author follows a young girl determined to master throwing a knuckleball. A knuckleball--11-year-old Lucy Chance's father's signature pitch--can dip and weave like magic. "You let it fly," says Lucy's dad, a pitcher for the minor league Salem Red Sox. Writing in her signature spare, impressionistic prose, MacLachlan conjures up a similar magic, surrounding Lucy with a tightknit cast of loving, supportive characters. Lucy's father hopes to move up to the major leagues and encourages her passion for the sport. Her perceptive mother, a painter, draws parallels between Lucy's father's love of baseball and her own artistic talents ("Think of him trying to paint the game. Like me painting a picture"), while Edgar Vazquez, her father's best friend and a catcher for the Sox, is a steady, calming presence. Lucy's best friends and baseball teammates, cousins Robin and Tex, help her secretly practice her knuckleball. Though the novel is light on plot, it nevertheless immerses readers in Lucy's world, capturing characters' seemingly small but deeply meaningful victories: a successful game for Lucy, a beautiful sketch drawn by her mother, words of praise from a major league scout who's observed her father. Everyone wins in this gentle, low-key sports story. Physical descriptions of characters are minimal; Edgar mentions growing up in Puerto Rico. Quietly joyful and triumphant. (Fiction. 8-13)

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