Baseball Genius

      The book that I have chosen for my blog entry was the book Baseball Genius written by author Tim Green and Derek Jeter. The genre of this story is realistic fiction with a little bit of science fiction. This is because the story takes place in a world just like ours, making it realistic fiction. It is also science fiction because the main character who is a baseball player has the power to predict what pitch he is going to get thrown when he is batting. This story starts by introducing us to some of the main characters such as Little League baseball player Jalen DeLuca, his friend and teammate Daniel, and Yankees baseball star James Yager. As the story continues, we learn that Jalen wants to play for the best baseball team in the area, but his father can't afford to pay the nearly $1000 fee. This leads Jalen to attempt to steal some really expensive baseballs from James Yager's house who happens to live nearby. However, Jalen ends up getting caught by Yager. As Yager is taking Jalen home, however, we find out that he could end up being cut by the Yankees for his inability to hit the baseball. Hearing this gives Jalen an idea. He could go to Yager's games and, by using his pitch guessing ability, James could tell Yager what pitch would be thrown to him. After thinking over it for a while, Yager agrees, Jalen then starts to attend every single one of Yager's games and uses his ability to help Yager get hits. After a few games of this going on, Yager gets a call from the Yankees' general manager and he tells Yager that, because of how he's been hitting the ball in the past few games, he can stay in the starting lineup. Even though Yager has still kept his job in the starting lineup, Jalen and Yager continue with their plan all the way throughout the season, and Yager even starts to pay Jalen some mon

ey to help him out with his family's financial situation.

      Overall, I really enjoyed reading this book and it was definitely my favorite book that I have read all year. There were many reasons as to why this book was my favorite book for the year. The first reason was that it always managed to keep me on the edge of my seat no matter what was going on in the story. For example, it is stressful as the reader when Jalen is trying to be as quiet as possible while stealing the baseballs from Yager's house because you really don't want to see him get caught. The next reason that this was my favorite book that I have read all year was that the author used great description all throughout the story. One example of this is when Jalen is guessing pitches for Yager for the first time and the author does a great job of describing the stress that Jalen is feeling because he doesn't want to end up giving Yager the wrong pitch. The last reason that this was my favorite book was because it was of the realistic fiction genre which is my favorite genre. The reason that realistic fiction books are my favorite is because I find them very relatable. such as when Jalen hits his first home run, or when Jalen makes a new friend at school. I would recommend this book to anyone that enjoys a suspenseful book and the realistic fiction genre.