It’s June; it’s time; it’s baseball season! For the Bachelder Library Book Club’s May selection, I
chose to re-read one of my favorites, especially because it’s June; it’s time…
Michael Chabon’s “Summerland” is an extraordinary book: part children’s, easily adult,
steampunk and adventure, he sucks in the reader inning by inning, run by run. He has created a
true American mythology, complete with villains, giants, little people, treasures, and quests. And it’s all based on baseball. Yes, baseball, and a native Indian crew called the ferishers. This is the
perfect “read-aloud to your kids” kind of story, especially at the end of those long and magical
summer days.
Ethan Feld is a terrible baseball player. His dad is an inventor who’s created a blimp vehicle that
he’s eager to market. Jennifer T. Rideout plays the best friend and whiz of a player, while Thor
Wignutt provides the oddball perspective. On Clam Island, Washington, the baseball field sits in
Summerland, a magical setting where it’s always blue sky and sunshine summer. And then one
day it isn’t, and Cinquefoil and Cutbelly and Ringfinger Brown and the arch enemy of all things
bright and beautiful, Rob Padfoot, aka “Coyote,” put in an appearance. Before Ethan knows
what hit him, his dad has been kidnapped by Padfoot in the “Victoria Jean,” the old Hotel
Summerland and the birch wood beside it have been torn down, the land is graying, and they’re
off on an epic adventure, a la, Homer’s “Odyssey.” With magic (“grammer”), close calls, and
inning by inning suspense, this book has it all – it’s baseball at its finest!