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Best Baseball Books for Kids

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by bigpern23, Aug 10, 2020.

  1. bigpern23

    bigpern23 Well-Known Member

    I still read to my 8-year-old every night and he's recently really enjoyed some baseball books I've read to him. True stories about the game's greats, including Ruth, DiMaggio, Jackie Robinson, Clemente and Aaron. Before I start a new story, I quiz him on the previous stories I've read to him, so he's really kind of learning some of the game's history.

    He's asking for a good Mickey Mantle book, largely because Mickey was my dad's favorite player and my dude wants to talk to Papa about him. So I'm looking for any good stories about Mantle or other baseball greats that might encourage an 8-year-old to enjoy the game.

    I'm thinking stories about Mantle, Koufax, Ted Williams, Willie Mays, or Josh Gibson. Maybe even more recent players such as Griffey, Jeter, Pujols, Pedro Martinez or Randy Johnson.

    We're talking third- or fourth-grade reading level stories. Perfectly fine for him to read by himself, we just like reading them together. Any suggestions?
     
    lakefront likes this.
  2. Slacker

    Slacker Well-Known Member

    You could get him started on baseball fiction, too.

    The Kid from Tomkinsville series, by John R. Tunis, is a good place to start.
     
  3. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    When I was his age, I devoured the Matt Christopher books. I have no idea if they hold up several decades later, but it looks like they still produce them. .. .Does anyone know if they updated them to fit the times a bit better?
     
  4. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    I think I mentioned this on here years ago, but when I was a kid, I had “The Kid Comes Back”, which was a sequel in which Roy goes off to the Army Air Force during WWII, then comes back to the Dodgers.

    As a kid, I kinda blew off the first half of the book, which deals with the Army story, and spent most of my time with the second part, which focuses on his baseball comeback. A couple of years ago, I found the book again, read it and found the military portion to be much more compelling than the baseball portion.
     
  5. Sea Bass

    Sea Bass Well-Known Member

  6. Guy_Incognito

    Guy_Incognito Well-Known Member

    My kids loved the Matt Christopher books, even though to me they felt like reading boxscores. Personally, I found my uncles old Chip Hilton books one day at my grandmother's house and loved them. Read them over and over.
     
    Last edited: Aug 14, 2020
  7. cyclingwriter2

    cyclingwriter2 Well-Known Member

    there is a good series called Who Is/ Who was that had a lot of baseball players in it. It’s stuff like Who Was Babe Ruth or Who is Derek Jeter. Good bets for your son. Also, if he like the formats the series has a lot of historic figures so you may spark something else.

    Also, you may want to find a “fun facts” baseball book. The kinds with short stories and odd ball facts. I remember having some of them as a kid and a story about how a bored AP wire guy created a fictional college football team one year and ran scores in the agates and even sent some fictional bios. He got caught when people started writing in to papers asking why the team wasn’t ranked.
     
    bigpern23 likes this.
  8. ADanielPandR

    ADanielPandR Member

    I too grew up on those and was wondering the same thing when I clicked on this thread. Off the top of my head, I also remember the Never Sink Nine series. In addition, there were some individual baseball books within non-sports-specific series, such as Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the Babe Ruth Baseball and at least one baseball-centric Boxcar Children story.

    No idea how they hold up either, much less whether there is anything new, but if you're looking for anything else, those are at least worth a search for reader reviews. At the very least, they are all filed under the interest/reading level of bigpern23's kid's age group.
     
  9. HanSenSE

    HanSenSE Well-Known Member

    When I was around that age (late 60s) a series of books by Curtis Bishop, such as Little League Heroes, were popular among the boys at my school. One was about breaking a Little League color line, one incorporating a Cuban refugee into a team, another about someone whose doctor's note was signed by his shrink, etc. Not sure if that's appropriate in your situation, though.
     
  10. sgreenwell

    sgreenwell Well-Known Member

    Ah, Pern - Its too bad we're not local to one another. If the kiddo likes fiction, I actually have the full run of the Angel Park All-Stars book series, which I hope some day that my (future) kids will be interested in. I'm... pretty awful at knowing if they'd be best for that grade range you're talking about, or if they're aimed at younger kids. But I remember liking them as a kid because they were one of the few "chapter books" I could find about sports. I would get them from the library back in the day, so there are probably some copies available where you're at.

    The other author I was really into was Matt Christopher, who was already mentioned. There might be some archaic stuff in those books, but they're definitely more for older kids, and there are a couple of books for pretty much every sport you can imagine. You might also want to check out Suzy Kline - I think she's mostly known for the Horrible Harry series, but she also has "Orp Goes to the Hoop," and that series had one book about baseball, I think.

    One other suggestion - I used to eat up books like this as a kid. For the life of me, I can't remember the titles, but I know they have non-fiction versions of them as well, where it would give you two to five strategic options, and then tell you what the manager actually did. One that I can recall vividly had Game Six of the 1986 World Series as a chapter. (i.e. What would you do in this situation? A) Leave Buckner in. B) Sub in Stapleton.)
     
  11. Batman

    Batman Well-Known Member

    Strangely, all of the choices wind up with Boston fans becoming insufferable pricks 25 years later.
     
  12. qtlaw

    qtlaw Well-Known Member

    "Star Shortstops of the Major Leagues (?)/Baseball"; or "Great Pitchers of Baseball/70s"; man I devoured those soft hardcover books in the 70's.
     
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