How to use this Page

Some good news to share: The Brooklyn Nine has been nominated for the 2012 Garden State Teen Book Award for Grades 6-8. All right! Thanks, New Jersey. Once again, I'm in great company--and once again, students will read B9 along with a lot of other books and vote on their favorite.

The Brooklyn Nine has now been nominated for eight state lists. Thanks everyone, and don't forget to keep reading over the summer!

Add a Comment

Time for some last-gasp winter Google Alerts from the interweb!

Southwest Middle School won the Gaston County, NC Battle of the Books competition. They had to answer questions about 27 different books--including The Brooklyn Nine! Congrats, guys!

And The Brooklyn Nine has made another state list! B9 was selected for the 2012 Oklahoma Sequoyah Master List! Thanks, Oklahoma. You're OK with me! (Yes, that's a postal abbreviation joke.)

I recently did a Skype visit with students at Upper Dauphin Area High School in Elizabethville, PA, and the local paper wrote up a great article about it. You can read it here.

And I'm starting to get alerts on Fantasy Baseball!

Mr. H at the SMS Guys Read blog loves the Fantasy Baseball poster I sent him...

Zoe posted a great summary/review of Fantasy Baseball at NextHub.com...

...and Ms. Certo at Hope Middle School recommends Fantasy Baseball as an independent reading selection for classrooms.

Thanks, everyone!

Add a Comment

I recently recorded a brief introduction to and reading from The Brooklyn Nine for TeachingBooks.net. Give it a listen!

Add a Comment

Gather around for a Google Alerts Round-up, troops!

Team Banzai member Janet send in this link to the Learning Through History newsletter, which recommends The Brooklyn Nine as a resource for historical studies centered around baseball, which is kind of a big deal this time of year. Thanks, Janet, and thanks Learning Through History!

Challenging the Bookworm likes The Brooklyn Nine because you don't have to be a sports fan to enjoy it...

Tyler B. at Otto-Eldred Junior-Senior High School writes on BookHooks that he "didn't dislike anything" about The Brooklyn Nine, and is sure "history nerds will like this book." :-)

Donna Woody at Print Matters picked up The Brooklyn Nine expecting a sports story, but feels like she got so much more...

"Like one of those cereals advertised as too tasty to be nutritious," says Doug Smith of the Lockport, New York Union-Sun & Journal, "'Brooklyn Nine' informs in an entertaining style."

And I'm a little late with the news (I was in Japan!), but Something Rotten got a great mention by Regina Brooks at the Huffington Post in an article about adapting classics for modern generations.

 Thanks, everyone!

Add a Comment

The Brooklyn Nine getting very nice end cap placement at Barnes & Noble this season, around the country.

Add a Comment

Twice monthly, since October, the school’s Newbery Club of fifth- and sixth-graders) has been meeting in the library with librarian Beryl Bresgi and teachers Jennifer Weiss and Debbie Bejar.

The participants chose 15 books to read, discuss and review.

During that time, they also posted reviews and continued their book discussions on a blog.
Then they voted on their "best book of the year."

Just like the Newbery Medal, which is awarded annually by the American Library Association for the most distinguished American children’s book published the previous year, the students embarked on a process of creating a "Schechter Newbery" — or what they dubbed the "Blueberry" award.

 The winner was The Dragon of Trelian by Michelle Knudsen, with The Brooklyn Nine and The Year the Swallows Came Early by Kathryn Fitzmaurice as honor books.

Thanks, guys! When's the award ceremony? I'm writing my speech...

Add a Comment

It's time for round of my semi-regular ego-boost. It's been a while, so I've got a bit of a backlog. Here we go!

Editor Liz reports that The Brooklyn Nine was named to the 2010 Kansas State Reading Circle Catalog with a starred rating. "The lists are distributed and promoted throughout the state of Kansas during the current year." (Thanks, Kansas!)

The Brooklyn Nine is also now for sale in Scholastic Book Fairs. Here's a brief booktalk they put together for it. (Opens as a PDF.) And here's the featured book page.

Media center coordinator Beth Martin writes a lovely appreciation of The Brooklyn Nine in the Wausau Daily Herald.

Stephanie Dethlefs, writing the Children's Book Corner for the Neighborhood-Kids blog, calls The Brooklyn Nine a championship-level book. 

The Semicolon blog names The Brooklyn Nine as one of the two best sports books of the year.

Angela Craft at Bookish Blather wishes The Brooklyn Nine had at least been a Newbery Honor book.

Doret at The Happy Nappy Bookseller had The Brooklyn Nine picked as a Newbery sleeper candidate...

...as did DaNae at Literate Lives...

...and the Arapahoe Library District...

...and Sarah at The Reading Zone. (Thanks, guys! That would have been incredible!)

O.W.L. (Outrageously Wonderful Literature from the Middle Grade) has The Brooklyn Nine in their mailbox...

...as does Mallory at Grammar Girl.

While Valerie at the I Should Be Writing Blog has Something Wicked in her mailbox.

Something Wicked has been nominated for the 2010-2011 South Carolina Children's Book Awards. (Thanks, South Carolina!)

Serious about Series plugs Something Rotten and Something Wicked.

Someone at Books for Sale would include Something Rotten and Something Wicked in a YA starter library if he/she was given $1,000 and carte blanche.

Mer at the Harris County Public Library recommends Something Rotten as a great mystery.

A Baltimore English teacher is going to use Add a Comment

Add a Comment

Time for my semi-regular Google Alerts ego-boost!

Andrea at The Little Bookworm likes the tiara tease in Something Wicked, then finds a way to work Wicked into a title meme.

The McDowell News covers my recent school visit to East McDowell Middle School in Marion, NC, and reports on how I "obtained permission from my wife to write full time"...

The Brooklyn Nine has won a Library Media Connection 2009 Editor's Choice Award. (Opens as a PDF.)

The Brooklyn Nine is one of many terrific middle grade novels nominated for the 2009 Cybil Awards...

And Musings of a Book Addict muses on the connections between the first inning and the ninth inning in a Brooklyn Nine review for the Cybils.

Thanks everyone for the mentions!

Add a Comment

Time for my semi-regular ego-check! This installment is all about The Brooklyn Nine...

The Brooklyn Nine gets nods in the mock Newbery lists from Kiera Parrott at the Association for Library Service to Children blog; Nan Hoekstra at Anokaberry, the Anoka County Public Library blog; the King County Library System in Washington; the St. Joseph County Public Library in South Bend, Indiana; the Eva Perry Mock Newbery Club at the Wake County Public Library in North Carolina; and the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana. If I've missed a mention of The Brooklyn Nine on your mock Newbery list, please let me know!

Brooklyn historian John Manbeck includes The Brooklyn Nine in his article about new books set in his favorite borough for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

Thanks to everyone for the great mentions--especially everyone who has put The Brooklyn Nine on their mock Newbery lists! From your lists to the committee's ears... :-)

Add a Comment

Time for another ego-stroking Google Alerts Round-up, this time, featuring The Brooklyn Nine on the cover of Booklist magazine!

Fellow scribe and poet laureate of Asheville, NC, Allan Wolf, sent me the link to the September edition of Booklist online, which focuses on sports. In addition to the cover, The Brooklyn Nine is featured in the issue's 2009 Top Ten Sports Books for Youth!

Meanwhile, I'm interviewed over at The Secret Adventures of WriterGirl, where reader/writer/blogger writer Heather Zundel asks me, among other things, where all the girls are in Samurai Shortstop. She also posts a very nice review.

Add a Comment

It's time for my semi-monthly ego check!

country_gal from Decatur, Georgia, was prepared to be bored by Something Rotten, but was won over by Horatio's sarcasm.

Something Rotten also makes the Bookworms Carnival of delights at A Bibliophile's Bookshelf, thanks to this glowing review at Barney's Book Blog.

The North Carolina Literary Festival (of which I am a part) is getting some press.

KL Knight at Knight Reader thinks Something Wicked has a great hook to get kids interested in Macbeth.

And Sarah over at The Reading Zone has a really terrific post about perfect games, The Brooklyn Nine, and building schema.

Thanks everyone! Your affiliate checks will be mailed when you reach $100.

Add a Comment

Just a couple of ego checks today:

East Hampton Public Library makes The Brooklyn Nine a Cool Pick for Hot Summer Days...

And Jess at Barney's Book Blog (no, not that Barney) thinks Something Rotten is one of the best young adult novels she's read in a long time.

Thanks, guys!

Add a Comment

Sarah at The Reading Zone gives The Brooklyn Nine a rave review. Thanks, Sarah!

Add a Comment

It's time for my regular vanity check from the internets:





















Something Wicked is a SIBA award nominee.

Professor Nana's been reading more books based on Hamlet.

LJ at 75 o'clock is looking forward to the next Horatio Wilkes mystery.

Mr. Muldowney's class can choose to read Something Rotten for their 9th grade book project, but they have to discuss symbolism and irony in the book by April 21st.

School Library Journal featured Samurai Shortstop in a recent article on books for kids set in the days of the samurai.

Devaney Doak & Garrett Booksellers in Farmington, Maine, thinks The Brooklyn Nine would make a great classroom book.

Susan Harkins at BookPleasures.com thinks Something Wicked is a treasure.

And Linda Sue Park, author of the Newbery Award-winning A Single Shard, writes about both The Brooklyn Nine and Something Rotten on her Amazon blog!

Add a Comment

Add a Comment

Faithful reader Mike in Arizona sends along this odd tidbit: The Brooklyn Nine is listed among the many items available to people who subscribe to the Arizona Republic newspaper as a part of their Reader Rewards Program. From the newspaper's promo e-mail:

We want to thank you for subscribing to The Arizona Republic. With more value than ever, you’ll find unbeatable deals in every section on everything from travel and entertainment to fashion, grocery and more. It really is value you can't afford to miss. We’re also committed to showing our appreciation to loyal subscribers by treating you to exclusive rewards. Each month, you will receive an e-mail highlighting different gifts for you to choose from. It’s our way of saying THANK YOU!

This week's list included four tickets to see Leonard Cohen, various store gift cards in $10 and $15 amounts, and a list of books, DVDs, and CDs:



There it is. Ten places down.

I suspect this is an advance reader copy that was sent to the paper in the hopes it would be reviewed. Sounds like The Republic is doing a little spring cleaning...

Add a Comment

I've been fortunate enough to have all four of my novels picked up by the by the Junior Library Guild, an organization that reads, chooses, recommends, and sells selected books to libraries around the country. JLG has a great track record of choosing books that go on to win further awards and accolades, and each selection of my books has heralded more good things to come.

The Junior Library Guild puts out a magazine in which they feature new selections as they become available, and the April/May issue has a nice page on The Brooklyn Nine, including a summary, review, and a few words from me about the book. The bottom of the page is dedicated to "curriculum indications," letting librarians know format, genre, main characters, settings, curriculum areas, and more. There's also a "Topics" heading, and reading the topics selected for The Brooklyn Nine--a story which stretches out over nine generations and more than 150 years--reads like some kind of weird Billy Joel "We Didn't Start the Fire" kind of thing!

Topics: Baseball. Baserunning. The garment industry. Immigrants. Rules. Fire. Firefighters. Fire breaks. Gunpowder. Injuries. Leather baseballs. The Civil War. Confederate Money. Battlefields. Baseball bats. Choosing teams. Mike "King Kelly (1857-1894). Vaudeville shows. Being drunk. Pawn shops. Racism. Anti-Semitism. Bullies. Names. Cyclone Joe Williams, a.k.a. Smokey Joe Williams (1886?-1946?). Fistfights. Tryouts. Gambling. Newspaper reporters. Floyd Caves "Babe" Herman (1903-1987). Fixing a bet. The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Being a rookie. Winning. Teammates. World War II. Superstitions. V-E Day. Loss. Grief. Baseball cards. Flipping cards. Sputnik. Duck and Cover. Mutually Assured Destruction. Pitching. Little League teams. Coaches. Star Wars. Perfect games. Sentimental value. Spoiled children. Antique shops. Collectibles. Stamp collectors. Provenance. Fan sites. Negotiations.

Whew! I think the next time somebody asks me what The Brooklyn Nine is about, that's what I'll tell them.

Add a Comment

Editor Liz sends this pic of The Brooklyn Nine "in situ," as it were: faced out on a baseball display at the Barnes & Noble on Fifth Avenue in New York City!

I particularly like that it occupies primo top shelf space in the Newbery Award books section! Let the Brooklyn Nine Newbery campaign begin! :-)

If you see The Brooklyn Nine at a bookstore, I'd appreciate a photo. I'll post it here and give you props! Just e-mail me, and I'll tell you how to get it off your phone to me.

Add a Comment

It's pub day! Today is the day my latest novel, The Brooklyn Nine, officially goes on sale. The Brooklyn Nine is my first solidly middle grade (ages 8-12) novel, although of course I hope that it will be read and enjoyed by all ages.

The Brooklyn Nine was a massive project for me. It's nine "innings"--nine generations--of an American family from the 1840s to the present, and their ongoing connections to baseball. In the first inning, Felix Schneider fights one of New York City's greatest fires alongside Alexander Cartwright and his Knickerbocker Volunteer Fire Brigade--who also happen to have developed the first modern rules for baseball. Felix's son Louis finds a kindred baseball spirit--who also happens to be a Rebel--while fighting in Virginia during the Civil War. In 1894, Felix's grandson Arnold meets his hero, famed baseballer King Kelly, only to find that sometimes heroes have feet of clay. Scrappy Walter Schneider--now Snider--tries to pass a black player off as a Native American to get him onto the Brooklyn Superbas, and in the fifth inning his daughter, numbers whiz Frankie Snider, cons a con man with the help of an eccentric sports writer. Frankie's daughter Kat makes it big in the professional women's leagues during World War II, and in 1957 her son Jimmy ducks and covers from bullies, Sputnik, and Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley. Kat's grandson Micheal flirts with perfection in a Little League game in 1981, and in 2002 his son Snider Flint pieces together the history of a bat that links him to the past.

One family, nine generations. One city, nine innings of baseball. That's the tag line. :-)

The Brooklyn Nine is a novel some three years in the making. It took countless hours of research, writing, editing, and rewriting--lots and lots of rewriting--to become the book that hits bookstore and library shelves today. I really couldn't be more proud of this book, and I have to give special thanks to my editor, Liz Waniewski at Dial, for helping guide and mold this project from its earliest beginnings. I have to thank my wife Wendi too, without whose constant help and patience none of my books would exist.

This novel, more than any other I've written, is about family, and is dedicated (at long last!) to my parents.

I do hope you'll go out and find a copy and give it a read, and pass it along to any kids in your life who love baseball, history, or tales of adventure.

For more info, visit my web site:

About the book
Read the first chapter
Read the reviews
The history of The Brooklyn Nine, inning by inning

To buy the book:

Amazon
Barnes and Noble
IndieBound
Powell's

The Brooklyn Nine is also available at fine bookshops big and small.

Thanks for your support, and thanks for helping spread the word!

Add a Comment

While I was traveling last week, editor Liz sent me this great review of The Brooklyn Nine from School Library Journal:

In loosely connected chapters, Gratz examines how one Brooklyn family is affected by the game of baseball. Ten-year-old German immigrant Felix Schneider arrives in America in the mid-19th century and uses his speed to good advantage both on the ball field and as a runner delivering the goods his uncle, a cloth cutter, produces. His fortunes and his family’s take a turn for the worse, however, when his legs are badly injured in the great Manhattan fire of 1845 (where he encounters volunteer firefighter Alexander Cartwright, the father of modern baseball). Subsequent “innings” deal with Felix’s son, Louis, who has compassion for a Confederate soldier because of their shared love of baseball; Walter Snider, a Brooklyn Superbas batboy who secures a tryout for legendary Negro Leagues star Cyclone Joe Williams and discovers the ugliness of anti-Semitism and racial prejudice; and Jimmy Flint, a 10-year-old in 1957, who worries about the class bully, Sputnik, nuclear annihilation–and the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn. Curiously, the author passes over the team’s glory years from the late 1940s to the mid-’50s. For the working-class Schneider/Snider family, baseball is an important part of their history, but it does little to mitigate the gritty reality of their lives. Economic uncertainty, prejudice, and the threat of violence are ever-present concerns, and the accurate, tough-minded depiction of these issues is the novel’s greatest strength.–Richard Luzer, Fair Haven Union High School, VT

Thanks, Richard, and thanks School Library Journal!

Add a Comment

I was actually on the phone with editor Liz when an e-mail hit her inbox with the news that The Brooklyn Nine is getting a starred review from Booklist in the February 1st issue! Booklist is the official review journal of the American Library Association, and I couldn't be more thrilled. Booklist and ALA both have been very supportive of me and my books since giving Samurai Shortstop a starred review of its own, and naming it a top ten book of the year.

Here's the review. I've thrown in a little star, because I can. :-)

Gratz (Samurai Shortstop, 2006) builds this novel upon a clever enough conceit—nine stories (or innings), each following the successive generations in a single family, linked by baseball and Brooklyn—and executes it with polish and precision. In the opening stories, there is something Scorsese-like (albeit with the focus on players, not gangsters) in Gratz’s treatment of early New York: a fleet-footed German immigrant helps Alexander Cartwright (credited with creating modern baseball) during a massive 1845 factory fire; a young boy meets his hero, the great King Kelly, who by age 30 is a washed-up alcoholic scraping by as a vaudeville act. The pace lags a bit in the middle innings, where a talented young girl stars in the WW II–era All-American Girls Baseball League and a card-collecting boy lives in fear of the Russians, Sputnik, and the atomic bomb. But the final two stories provide a flurry of late-inning heroics: a Little League pitcher’s shot at a perfect game told with breathtaking verve; and a neat stitching-together effort to close the book. Each of the stories are outfitted with wide-ranging themes and characters that easily warrant more spacious confines, but taken together they present a sweeping diaspora of Americana, tracking the changes in a family through the generations, in society at large for more than a century and a half, and, not least, in that quintessential American pastime. — Ian Chipman

Thanks, Ian, and thanks Booklist! The Brooklyn Nine goes on sale March 5th.

Author's note: Interestingly, this is the second review in a row that has called my writing "polished"...

Add a Comment

Editor Liz just forwarded me The Brooklyn Nine's first review, and it's a good one. And from Kirkus, no less!

Nearly nine generations span the years from Alexander Cartwright’s 1840s Knickerbocker Base Ball days to the present, and Gratz places a young character from a fictional family of Brooklynites in each, threading their stories together with the development of the American bat and ball game. Abner Doubleday makes a very brief appearance at a Union Army camp (even as the author discredits the myth that Doubleday founded modern baseball). An eager batboy from the Brooklyn Superbas persuades a talented Negro player to come to a tryout as an American Indian—and loses his love for his team when it’s clear that no one on the team will give Cyclone “Smoky” Joe Williams (later described as the best pitcher in any league) a chance to play. John Kiernan, the legendary journalist and facts man, lends a hand to a young numbers runner following a Brooklyn Robins game in the 1930s. The fictional voice is sure and engaging, polished without being slick—an entertaining and compelling look at the deep roots of our national pastime.

Thank you, anonymous Kirkus reviewer!

Add a Comment

Editor Liz sends this photograph of a New York State historical marker that perpetuates the myth that Abner Doubleday "founded" baseball. There is no proof that Abner Doubleday ever picked up a baseball in his life, much less that he invented the game. Alexander Cartwright is generally acknowledged as the "father of baseball" now because he and his Knickerbocker Baseball Club of Manhattan were the first to codify the modern rules of baseball, but to say that anyone invented the game is to ignore the many, many ball game antecedents played for decades before the Knickerbockers were founded.

The Doubleday myth was created by Robert Graves and Albert G. Spalding in an effort to prove that baseball was an "All-American" game, and accepted by Major League Baseball without much in-depth inquiry. The myth was compounded when MLB chose Doubleday's hometown, Cooperstown, as the site for their Hall of Fame in 1939--the supposed one hundred year anniversary of Doubleday's "invention"--and repeated in marketing and promotion materials.

I do my best to dispute the Doubleday myth in my forthcoming middle grade novel, The Brooklyn Nine.

There's a good summary of the Doubleday myth at Wikipedia.

Add a Comment

Five minutes ago I e-mailed the latest revision of The Brooklyn Nine to editor Liz, and by total coincidence the Dodgers are today, even as I write this, playing their last ever spring training game at Dodgertown in Vero Beach, Florida. Next season, they move to new digs in Glendale, Arizona.

In 1948 the Brooklyn Dodgers were the first team to establish spring training facilities in Florida, an innovation by General Manager Branch Rickey, the man credited with developing pro baseball's first farm team system and who later made history by signing Jackie Robinson. While other teams have changed cities and stadiums, the Dodgers have been a fixture in Vero Beach, Florida for sixty years. Today that comes to an end.

It makes sense for the Dodgers to have spring training in Arizona with the rest of the West Coast teams in the Cactus League. It's closer to their fans, and closer to the players' families. In a last ditch effort to keep the Dodgers in Vero Beach, the city bought the complex from the Dodgers in 2001 and leased it back to them for just $1 per year. But Arizona has done everything it can to lure the Dodgers away from Florida, offering to pay them to move and build brand new facilities for them. In the end it was too hard to resist.

And Dodgertown, as revered as it is, is something of a relic. The dugouts are literally trenches dug out of the ground with no roof overhead, and the closest urinals for the players during the game are in the right field corner. The player entrance is the same as the fan entrance, with a sign above the ramp that says "Players left, Public right," and the stadium seats just 6,500 people--charming enough for a single-A team, but in today's world of high-attendance spring training games Holman Stadium is busting at the seams. (The new ballpark in Glendale will have room for 12,000 people.)

I've been to spring training games in Florida, but alas I never made it to Vero Beach for a game. I did visit Vero Beach for a school visit once though, and I took the opportunity to drive over to Dodgertown and take some pictures. It's not just a stadium, it's a complex--a place where players like Campanella and Koufax and Snider and Drysdale and Robinson once stayed in little motel rooms and ate together in the cafeteria and worked out on sandy baseball fields. Even in the "off-season," Dodgertown still echoed with memories:

Sayonara, Dodgertown.

Hey--maybe the Mets will move in to replace the Dodgers the way they did in New York in 1964. But just like then, it wouldn't be the same.

Add a Comment