The Great Baseball Card Hunt (A Southside Sluggers Baseball Mystery)

Features

• Reading level: Ages 9-12
  
• Cover Type: Paperback with 106 pages
• Published by: Aladdin February 1, 1992
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0671729314
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0671729318
• Book Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.2 inches
• Weighs: 3.2 ounces

From School Library Journal
Grade 3-5-- The Southside Sluggers, a coed baseball team of fifth graders, has a new player who doesn't know the meaning of teamwork. Between games, the children embark upon a search for rare baseball cards, hidden by the youth league's commissioner in celebration of his retirement at the end of the season. In the end, the team learns to play harmoniously. Greenberg clearly intends to teach the value of working together and cooperation, but readers will not like being hit over the head with this fact chapter after chapter. While he employs a clever device of having the players solve four riddles as clues leading to the location of the rare old baseball cards, he produces some real blunders. (In one case, a librarian describes the boy who checked out a specific book and says that she would look up his name for the Southside Sluggers if the computer were not down.) Illustrations are cartoonlike and of marginal appeal with all characters sporting bulbous noses and looking alike. --Blair Christolon, Prince William Library, Manassas, VA
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews
The Lotus Pines Youth Baseball League is all abuzz: the outgoing commissioner has announced a treasure hunt with three rare baseball cards as the hidden prize. Southside Sluggers Rachel, Zach, and Andy work steadily on solving his cryptic rhymed clues, meanwhile trying to improve their team's dismal record; with the help of Seth, a new would-be superstar outfielder, they manage both. More product than story, this mystery-cum-sports fiction, based on a scenario by Glenn Lewis and Gail Tuchman, combines predictable plot, bland characters, superfluous explanations (``Andy was the peacemaker''), an afterword about collecting baseball cards, and a glib lesson about the value of teamwork; it is, of course, one of a series. Occasional b&w drawings feature young people with puzzled expressions. (Fiction. 9-11) -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.