Bat 6

First lines

Now that it's over, we are telling.

About this book

In small town, post-World War Oregon, twenty-one sixth-grade girls recount the story of an annual softball game, during which one girl's bigotry comes to the surface. Set in a small Oregon town just after World War II, this is the powerful tale of a community shattered by its reaction to two young newcomers, Aki and Shazam. Told from 21 different points of view, "Bat 6" explores the subject of Japanese-American racial prejudice after the war. Photographs and text present an up-close look at varied aspects of the lives of professional basketball players, from pre-game preparations, practice, game action, signing autographs, and more. A Japanese American girl who has just spent 6 years in an internment camp meets a bitter girl whose father was killed in Pearl Harbor, & the two become rivals in baseball in this story narrated by the members of the opposing teams.

Themes & subjects

About the author

Virginia Euwer Wolff

1937

Virginia Euwer Wolff is the winner of the 2011 Phoenix Award for her 1991 novel The Mozart Season. Her 2001 novel True Believer won the National Book Award and her newest novel for young adults, This Full House (2009), is on the American Library Association’s Amelia Bloomer List.