SuitabookThe Brooklyn nine
Alan Gratz
- Reading
- Read in short stretches, pausing between innings to keep track of each generation and its place in the family. You could note how baseball appears in each episode, then compare the different roles characters take in the game.
- Themes
- Family across generations: Nine successive Schneider children connect the family story to Brooklyn and baseball across periods beginning in 1845. The nine-innings structure gives the family history an episodic shape, with each generation contributing a separate part of the larger story.
- Race and opportunity in baseball: A batboy arranges a tryout for a Black pitcher by pretending he is Cuban. The episode brings identity and access into the story of a baseball tryout.
- Worth knowing
- The story includes a batboy who presents a Black pitcher as Cuban to arrange a tryout. This episode raises questions of race and access.