Molly and her father both loved baseball, and that shared passion is one of the many things she misses since his recent death. A barrier has arisen between Molly and her mother, so she doesn’t tell her mom when she decides to try out for the school team—baseball, that is, not softball. Molly’s strong knuckleball, honed during hours of backyard practice with her dad, gets her a spot on the team as the only girl. Many of the players are resentful, but the coaches recognize her value, and an unexpected friendship develops with one teammate. This blend of a sports story (with plenty of game time play-by-play) and a tale of moving on from loss offers a satisfying balance of both components as it follows Molly through a difficult season of adjustment. (Ages 12–15)

For an eighth grader, Molly Williams has more than her fair share of problems. Her father has just died in a car accident, and her mother has become a withdrawn, quiet version of herself.

Molly doesn’t want to be seen as “Miss Difficulty Overcome”; she wants to make herself known to the kids at school for something other than her father’s death. So she decides to join the baseball team. The boys’ baseball team. Her father taught her how to throw a knuckleball, and Molly hopes it’s enough to impress her coaches as well as her new teammates.

Over the course of one baseball season, Molly must figure out how to redefine her relationships to things she loves, loved, and might love: her mother; her brilliant best friend, Celia; her father; her enigmatic and artistic teammate, Lonnie; and of course, baseball.

Mick Cochrane is a professor of English and the Lowery Writer-in-Residence at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York, where he lives with his wife and two sons.