Deborah Hopkinson

Award Winning Author of Fiction & Nonfiction for Children & Teens

Girl Wonder

A Baseball Story in Nine Innings

Girl Wonder

What is this book about?

Alta Weiss was born to play base­ball, sim­ple as that. From the age of two, when she hurls a corn­cob at a pesky tom­cat, folks in her small Ohio town know one thing for sure: She may be a girl, but she’s got some arm.

When she’s sev­en­teen, Alta hears about a semi­pro team, the Inde­pen­dents. Here’s her big chance! But one look at Alta’s long skirts tells Coach all he needs to know — girls can’t play baseball!

Faster than you can say “strike out!,” Alta’s con­vinced him to give her a chance. And so with the crowd buzzing and the big game up to her, Alta steps up to the pitcher’s mound, deter­mined to prove every­body wrong.

Inspired by the life of pio­neer­ing female base­ball play­er Alta Weiss, and dra­ma­tized by Ter­ry Widen­er’s bold illus­tra­tions, Girl Won­der tells the unfor­get­table sto­ry of a true Amer­i­can original.

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Reviews

“Hop­kin­son enrich­es her bur­nished prose with an author’s note about the real Alta Weiss and a chronol­o­gy of women in base­ball. Widen­er’s exag­ger­at­ed faces and rub­bery-look­ing bod­ies are set in a pic­ture plane of bright acrylics, where a bat or glove might pop out over the edge: a logo of ball and bats marks the innings of Alta’s life. There’s a stur­dy charm to Alta’s voice, and an unmis­tak­able pas­sion for the game. (Book­slist)

Girl Wonder

author, Deb­o­rah Hop­kin­son
illus­tra­tor, Ter­ry Widen­er
Atheneum / Simon & Schus­ter
ages 6 and up, 2003
ISBN 978–0689833007

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