Samurai Shortstop
Alan Gratz’s new YA novel [for young adults] has a Japanese theme, and it is titled “Samurai Shortstop.” According to a stateside blogger, the book,which is very well written and researched, takes place in Japan during its industrial revolution:
There was some serious culture shock at the time, with the dying era of the samurai and the embracing of all things Western, including baseball. The story is told through the eyes of a young private school boy whose father and uncle are both samurai. In fact, the story opens with his uncle commiting seppuku — this grabs the reader immediately! I learned about an interesting time in history while enjoying what is essentially a classic “baseball story” in reading Samurai Shortstop.
(via Elizabeth Dulemba blog)
BIO DATA: Alan Gratz was born and raised in Knoxville, Tennessee, home of the 1982 World’s Fair. Alan attended the University of Tennessee, where he earned a degree with a specialization in creative writing, and, later, a Master’s degree in English education.
Alan lives with his wife Wendi and his daughter Jo just outside Atlanta, Georgia, where he enjoys reading, eating pizza, and, perhaps not too surprisingly, watching baseball.
Samurai Shortstop is his first book.
His blog is here.
May 18th, 2006 at 4:45 pmSamurai Shortstop got a nice review by Elizabeth Ward in the Washington Post. Here’s an excerpt:
Gratz’s research pays off in vivid portraits of the walled school and the teeming city beyond it. There’s violence, from a seppuku suicide to hazing rituals that Gratz tries not to be anachronistically judgmental about. There’s drama in the climactic game between the Japanese high schoolers and a flashy team of American businessmen and servicemen. There’s humor. The boys’ efforts to run their own cafeteria are priceless, as is the school’s dim-bulb cheer squad, “screeching at the top of their lungs” for friend and foe alike.
May 18th, 2006 at 4:57 pmWashington Post says:
Alan Gratz’s debut novel is a page-turner that’s as much about history as baseball. Gratz traces his inspiration to a photo he saw of the 1915 National High School Baseball Summer Championship Tournament in Japan. ” 1915! ” he writes. Wasn’t baseball imported into Japan by American GIs after World War II? When he discovered that the game’s roots in the country go back to the 1870s, Gratz came up with the idea of a beseboru novel set in an elite Tokyo boys’ boarding school 20 years later, when the modernization set in motion by the emperor Meiji was in full spate
May 18th, 2006 at 4:59 pmInteresting, how this book is “perceived” by some readers in the West. An exchange of parents and reviewers here:
Mrs. A: Would this be too sophisticated for my son, a very smart eleven year old who loves baseball, history and likes to think of himself as hard-core Asian (his words, not mine!)?
REVIEWER BLOGGER:
I think he would enjoy it. i do not think there is anything too terribly intense other than the suicide of the uncle which is not related in great gory detail. otherwise, there are tons of great detail about the culture which your 11 year old would enjoy i suspect.
Mrs. A:
Thanks, I’ll get it for him.
parent no. 2
i have just finished samurai shortstop myself (which is why I’m googling to see if there’s anybody else out there with something to say about it.) i’m going to leave it lying around for my 11-year-old baseball nut to discover but i’m a little worried about the violence of the opening chapter, and the vicious (near “lord-of-the-flies”) bullying that goes on at the boarding school the main character attends. this is a lot less about baseball than it is about japan’s transformation to western society.
CRITIC BLOGGER:
May 18th, 2006 at 5:25 pmSomehow I am not terribly concerned about the violence and the bullying in the book as I think they reflect what you point out: the westernization of Japan. I will be interested in seeing how American kids react to it.
I teach gifted 7th grade history, which includes Japan in my state. I’m thinking of using this book. I’m interested in hearing Japanese opinion as to its accuracy. I wish it were a little more accurate with regards to the style of baseball played at the time. The urinating seems a little superfluous and is something I’ll have to deal with if I do assign this book. Otherwise, I think it is outstanding and should be a great way to talk about the Meiji Restoration. Although not mentioned in the book, I think it also gives insight into the militarism of Toyo’s generation.
June 28th, 2006 at 11:37 am