Gorman, Carol.
STUMPTOWN KID
Atlanta : Peachtree, 2005
IL 3-6, RL 4.4
ISBN 1561453374

(2 booktalks)

Wouldn’t it be great to have a professional baseball player give you personal pointers on your pitching style and batting technique?  Twelve year old Charlie  Nebraska isn’t the best baseball player in his town, but if professional Luther Peale helps him, Charlie knows he’ll get a lot better.  Luther has even offered to coachCharlie’s team.  It sounds like a perfect situation but there is a problem.  This is the 1950’s and Luther is a black man and a stranger to the small  Nebraska town. Not only that, but Luther has a secret.  This is an exciting story about a boy fighting his family and neighbors for what he believes is right, even if doing so puts him in danger.  (New Hampshire Great Stone Face 2007)

Booktalk #2

It is 1952 and I really wanted to make the Wildcats, Holden, Iowa's baseball team for eleven and twelve-year olds. I did happen to notice the stranger sitting on the bleachers observing us kids that day, but I didn't pay it any mind.  Not at least, until I didn't make the team and after tryouts, heard the man speak about some tips.  Boy, did I pay attention after that because somehow I realized that this guy knew his stuff about baseball.

There were only a few colored men I had ever seen in Holden before, and this guy was getting noticed.  People in their cars and walking down the sidewalk stared at him, and it bothered me. My mother seemed to like this man, Luther Peale, when I introduced him to her, but my mother's so-called companion, Vern, did not.  And, I myself, despised Vern even more than he didn't like Luther.

My name is Charlie and I live alone with my mother.  My father is dead, I think, from the war in Korea, but I don't really want to believe it. It's up to my mother and I to make it in the world, but I can't help wishing my father would come back.  Now, Luther is my friend, and I look up to him, and so do the kids who didn't make the team.  But I can't say much for some of the parents because they are suspicious of his helping us kids play better, and Lobo, the large twelve-year old who is always making me nervous and calling me 'Stumptown'.  It's almost like everyone wants to find something wrong with Luther.  But why is Luther traveling through our town?  Is Luther hiding something, and would he tell me the truth as my friend?  Will the town refuse to give him a chance just because he is colored?