Book Review - Samurai Shortsop
Alan Gratz's newly published novel, Samurai Shortstop, may be marketed for the Young Adult target audience but it is an enjoyable read for a baseball fan of any age. Beginning with the surprising, yet historical, premise that baseball has been played in Japan for more than a century, Gratz tells the story of Toyo, an adolescent struggling to find his place in a world undergoing significant cultural and sociological change. The son of a samurai, Toyo, finds an anchor point for living in a "new" Japan in his love for a western sport - baseball.
A great "baseball novel" is about more than hits and outs, winners and losers. It is about choices made - whether good or bad - and the resulting impact on the novel's characters. In other words, it's about life. Using that criterion, Samurai Shortstop is an outstanding story. Not only does Gratz craft a story about making "impossible" choices and taking responsibility for those decisions, he invites the reader to see and learn about another culture. For that reason alone, middle school and high school teachers could do far worse than recommending Samurai Shortstop to their students.
Samurai Shortstop, nevertheless, is not a perfect book (what book is?). The climactic confrontation between Toyo and his samurai father in the Shinto shrine (I won't risk revealing too much by saying more than that) is too important for the limited treatment given to it. In my reading of the story, everything after this point in the story was of secondary importance.
If you are an adult, don't be afraid to read a "Young Adult" book. It may not be Shoeless Joe, but it is still an enjoyable way to spend a Saturday morning. Turn off the TV, brew some tea, sit outside, and enjoy baseball in a different culture while you listen to the breeze in the trees (even if they're not cherry trees).
This review is based on the Galley Proof, an uncorrected text.
