Sliding Into Home

By Dori Hillestad Butler

Book Overview

Girls can't play baseball at Hoover Middle School, but Joelle is determined to find a way to play the game she loves.

It's not fair! Thirteen-year-old Joelle Cunningham is passionate about baseball. When her family moves to the small town of Greendale, Iowa, she quickly discovers that there are strict rules preventing her from playing on the school team.

At Hoover Middle School, only boys play baseball. Girls play softball. Joelle tries to tell everyone they're not the same sport. But no one is listening. Not Coach Carlyle who doesn't want her on his team, even though they're at the bottom of the league. Not Ms. Fenner, the softball coach who wants Joelle to use her big-league swing on the girls' softball team. Not even Jason, her older brother, who is too busy at college to be of much help.

Through some creative problem-solving and surprising alliances, Joelle finds a solution to her dilemma that brings the disputing sides together...and baseball to the girls of Greendale.

Author Dori Hillestad Butler has created a high-spirited, indomitable character that readers will admire and root for in this story of frustrated ambition and ultimate triumph.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1561453412
• ISBN13: 9781561453412
• Release Date: April 2005
• Publisher: Peachtree Publishers
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 8.5"
• Age Range: 8 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 3 to 7

Customer Reviews

Wow OH Wow

This book would have to go into my top 5 list for my life. She did a great job of leaving you into suspence and I hardly put the book down. I would stay up until 10 or 11 reading and then my eyes would just close. I really wanted to finish. Dori made this book have a great ending. I think that she should write a second novel telling how the baseball team did and if the girls did well or if any other girls joined the team. I loved the book. It is hard for me to find a good book that I have to finish but this one didn't take me long to finish if you look at the time I have to read because I do play all sports. Thank you Dori for writing such an awsome book. Loved IT.

The best book ever!

This book is Great! You will never read another book like this!If you decide to buy it you will never regret it. It is very insperation to all irls. This book is for all girls who all willing to fight for somthing. I highly recomend this book who has ever had to fight for somthing, and to all girls that love baseball.It will be suprising and exiting and at sometimes sad.

Sliding Into Home

This is a great book about a girl named Joelle Cunnigham. At the beginning of the book Joelle Cunnigham moved to a new town and state. She moved from Minneapolis to a town called Glendale, Iowa. Her brother Jason and her are very close and he is in college back in Minnesota. He plays college baseball and she is expected to be just like him. It isnt easy to be like him because he is the starting 1st basemen on the team. When she moves to Glendale she finds out that she is not allowed to play baseball. Girls in Glendale had never been allowed to play it in the past. Joelle was highly disgusted with the school board's rule. The school says that girls and boys do not play on the same baseball team and that girls have to play softball so that girls and boys have an equal oppurtunity of sports to play. Joelle wants to play on the Hawks baseball team and she is going to try everything that she possibly can to become a member of it. She goes to the superintendent's office, the school board, and she writes a letter to the local newspaper. She finally gets some feedback some of it is positive and the other is negative. Some of the negative is coming from girls on the softball team because they want her to play on their team. They think that since she won't play on the team that she thinks that she is too good to play on there. That is not the case with Joelle, all she wants to do is play some baseball. A lot of older people really agree with her and try to help her out. The coach of the Hawks and the school board still wouldn't change their minds about the rule. Joelle then meets a new best friend named Elizabeth. Joelle goes to the park one day and meets a couple of other girls that like baseball but aren't allowed to. They decide try to start a GIRLS ONLY baseball league together. They first have to hold a meeting to get the town aware about the baseball league for the girls. Afew surrounding towns eventually find out about it and decide to join the league. They at first get ready and go to a field to have their first game but the police came and said that they couldnt use the park. They decide to reschedule and an elderly woman allows them to use a lot beside her house. The Hawks ask her to play and she denys their proposal. Everybody comes to the game and it is all over the news girls everywhere in Iowa see Joelle and the other girls that helped start the league as big role-models now. No one would ever forget what Joelle Cunningham did to change girl's baseball in Glendale, Iowa.

Great books for girls.

Of the several books I read by Ms. Butler this is certainly the best! Even though the book centers on a girl trying to cut through red tape and prejudice to get the chance to play baseball, it really addresses many of life's most important and deepest values. It's about honesty, friendship, loyalty, courage and self awareness. I found the plot quite interesting with enough twists and turns to keep me constantly guessing. Excellent character development is an intregal part of the story's success. I'm sure a girl (and surprise, also a boy), would find this book an enjoyable, fun read that's filled with lessons about some of life's most important values. As I understand it, this book has it's basis in a real life story.

Making dreams a reality!

This may be a work of fiction but the situation is very real. Girls all over the country are facing this same problem all of the time. But there ARE places where they can play and Dori Butler introduces you to some of them. The leagues she talks about DO exist. The websites she mentions ARE real. A must read for any girl who has played or wants to play in a boys league or, better yet, start their own!