About Bat 6

Fiction Books (if you liked Bat 6...)

Oregon Reads 2009

Auch, Mary Jane One-Handed Catch
After losing his hand in an accident in his father’s butcher shop in 1946, sixth-grader Norman uses hard work and humor to learn to live with his disability and to succeed at baseball, art, and other activities.

Avi The Barn
In an effort to fulfill their dying father’s last request, nine-year-old Ben and his brother and sister construct a barn on their land in the Oregon Territory.

Beard, Darleen Bailey Operation Clean Sweep
In 1916, just four years after getting the right to vote, the women of Umatilla, Oregon band together to throw the mayor and other city officials out of office, replacing them with women.

Boulton, Jane Only Opal: The Diary of a Young Girl
A lyrical adaptation of the writings of Opal Whiteley, in which she describes her love of nature and her life in an Oregon lumber camp at the turn of the century.

Corey, Shana, Illustrated by Rebecca Gibbon Players in Pigtails
Katie Casey, a fictional character, helps start the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which gave women the opportunity to play professional baseball while America was involved in World War II.

Danenberg, Barry The Journal of Ben Uchida, Citizen #13559, Mirror Lake Internment Camp
Twelve-year-old Ben Uchida keeps a journal of his experiences as a prisoner in a Japanese internment camp in Mirror Lake, California, during World War II.

Evans, Shirlee Tree Tall and the Horse Race
Tree Tall, an Indian boy living on an Oregon reservation in the mid-nineteenth century, wins a horse of his own in a race but finds his victory marred by misunderstanding and prejudice.

Gregory, Kristiana Across the Wide and Lonesome Prairie: The Oregon Trail Diary of Hattie Campbell (Dear America Series)
In her diary, thirteen-year-old Hattie chronicles her family’s arduous 1847 journey from Missouri to Oregon on the Oregon Trail.

Heisel, Sharon E. Precious Gold Precious Jade
A young woman befriends a Chinese family despite the racism and fear that overwhelm the residents of her small western mining town at the end of the gold rush in Southern Oregon.

Hesse, Karen The Aleutian Sparrow
An Aleutian Islander recounts her suffering during World War II in American internment camps designed to “protect” the population from the invading Japanese.

Holm, Jennifer L. Penny from Heaven
As she turns twelve during the summer of 1953, Penny gains new insights into herself and her family while also learning a secret about her father’s death.

Kadohata, Cynthia Weedflower
After twelve-year-old Sumiko and her Japanese-American family are relocated from their flower farm in southern California to an internment camp on a Mojave Indian reservation in Arizona, she helps her family and neighbors, becomes friends with a local Indian boy, and tries to hold on to her dream of owning a flower shop.

Lampman, Evelyn Sibley The Potlatch Family
Looked down at by her classmates because of her darker skin and alcoholic father, a Chinook Indian girl gains a new outlook when her brother returns from Vietnam.

Mochizuki, Ken, Illustrated by Dom Lee Baseball Saved Us
A Japanese-American boy learns to play baseball when he and his family are forced to live in an internment camp during World War II. His ability to play helps him deal with prejudice after the war is over.

Paulsen, Gary Mr. Tucket
Fourteen-year-old Francis Tucket is heading west on the Oregon Trail with his family by wagon train. When he receives a rifle for his birthday, he is thrilled that he is being treated like an adult. It will take wild horses, hostile tribes, and a mysterious one-armed mountain man named Mr. Grimes to help Francis become the man who will be called Mr. Tucket.

Salisbury, Graham Under the Blood-Red Sun
Tomikazu Nakaji’s biggest concerns are baseball, homework, and a local bully, until life with his Japanese family in Hawaii changes drastically after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941.