The Girl Who Threw Butterflies

The Girl Who Threw Butterflies by Mick Cochrane

A deep abiding love of the game isn’t just limited to boys.  I know this firsthand since I have always been a huge baseball fan.  Like Molly, I grew up playing catch with my dad and watching games together.   But as an eighth grader, Molly has to live with unthinkable tragedy.  Just six months ago, her father died in a car accident.  While her mother tries desperately to banish all sign of him from the house, Molly’s doing her best to hold onto his memory, mainly through baseball.  She uses the knuckleball he taught her to earn a spot on the boy’s baseball team.  Molly’s choice to play baseball isn’t popular with everyone, but it’s something she feels she has to do.  And while she’s trying to lose herself in the game, it turns out she finds something in the process, new friends, new role models finally settling in to a new normal.

Overall, I found that the book did not condescend to its audience. There is no assumption that the most likely female readership will not understand the baseball aspects of the book.  It’s for lovers of the game, pure and simple, regardless of gender.   Real life baseball information ranging from famous knuckleballers (including my own beloved Tim Wakefield of the Red Sox) to women ballplayers who played with and against men is great for inspiring kids to learn more. 

Despite the fact that I liked this book, I wish the characters had a little more depth.  Also, Molly and her dad were supposedly Cubs fans, and yet this is sort of a small detail.  This makes me feel like the author name dropped the Cubs to get some credit for bringing up a baseball team with a rich history.  It’s sort of strange to me that a girl whose main connection to her father is baseball would be a sort of indifferent fan.  Not to mention that on the whole Cubs fans are pretty rabid.

Great for: Girls who love sports.  Molly is not a caricature.  She’s a normal girl that just really likes to play the game of baseball.  Also, I was really pleased that this book’s content was generally appropriate. I feel comfortable recommending this for upper elementary, although it does have some hard vocabulary, much of it is defined in context.

Sex, Nudity, Dating – There is one instance of hand-holding and one quick kiss.  There’s an observation that you can kiss someone enough to make them bruise.  The boys on the team say that a boy’s called a jock because of their “equipment”.
Profanity – “thank god,” “ticked off,” “shut up,” “darn,”
Death, Violence and Gore – Molly’s father died six months before the start of the book.  There’s a mention of President McKinley’s assassination.  There’s a reference to Charles Manson hearing voices.  Molly has seen a baseball movie where the pitcher lost his leg in a hunting accident.
Drugs, Alcohol and Smoking – None of the characters drink or smoke. There are a few references however.  A newspaperman is described as “cigar sucking.”  Molly reflects that her father was not a drug or booze addled person, in fact, he didn’t drink.  Molly says that she’s playing baseball, not shooting heroin.  Someone sounds like they have a “two-pack a day” habit.  A character is described as “not a stoner.”
Frightening or Intense Things – Written in a post 9/11 world, this book has various references to terrorists and terrorism.  There’s reference to a security czar changing the threat level.  The TV news talks about dirty bombs and bioterrorism.