When it comes to sports writing, Matt Christopher is both prolific and well liked. He’s starting to get more competition these days (which is a good thing) but for a long time he was the go to author in the genre. All Star Fever like many Christopher books requires an in depth understanding of the game in order to be enjoyable. This book is not for the casual fan, but rather for the kid who can score a game with you. Despite the advanced baseball knowledge required, this is overall an easy chapter book. There is a full page illustration about once per short chapter.
This first book in the Peach Street Mudders series follows Bus as he desperately tries to impress scouts so that he’ll make the county All-Star team. The problem is, Bus is so eager to show off, he’s distracted during the game. The main story is about Bus wanting to make the county All-Star team, but the rest of the book is about being a good person. Specifically about being the kind of person your parents can trust. In that respect I sort of felt that while Bus made the same decisions and mistakes as many kids he was given an awful lot of credit (maybe more than he deserved) for what good decisions he made.
The Peach Street Mudders series continues by following other players on the team. The players do include a Latino boy and an Asian boy if I’m safe in judging by names. Those books may be of interest if you’re looking for slightly more diverse baseball choices for the young reading crowd.
On the Matt Christopher spectrum, these are harder than “The Dog That…” series, about the same as some of Christopher’s offerings like The Lucky Baseball Bat and significantly easier than the bulk of his work. If you go to a library or bookstore it should be easy to tell the difference in difficulty by the size of the font, the number of pictures and the overall length of the book. While the Peach Street Mudders can probably be enjoyed by second graders, many Christopher books are difficult even for beginning or middle of the year third graders, so don’t expect your child to easily transition between them without checking the level first.
Sex, Nudity, Dating – None.
Profanity – “drat,” “heck,”
Death, Violence and Gore – None.
Drugs, Alcohol and Smoking – None.
Frightening or Intense Things – None.
I liked all Matt Christopher books as a kid, even though I never knew anything about any of the sports. I approached them as I did science fiction, where the characters are doing something imaginary and complicated, and I’d just roll with it and figure I’d learn it as the book went along.
Of course, he kept writing even after I grew up, but I lost track of him.
Thank you for the beautifully articulated discussion of reading level here.