The Kid from Diamond Street: The Extraordinary Story of Baseball Legend Edith Houghton

The team behind Brothers at Bat (2012) returns with another exuberant story drawn from baseball history. As a child in the 1920s, Edith Houghton wouldn’t let the fact that she was 10 keep her from trying out for the all-female Philadelphia Bobbies: “Edith was so good she made the team. Edith was so good she was named starting shortstop.” At 13, Houghton traveled with the Bobbies to Japan, where they held their own against male, college-level teams. Choice quotations from Houghton bring her personality and love of baseball to vivid life, while Salerno’s mixed-media artwork channels the footloose energy of the Jazz Age, especially during the Bobbies’ trans-Pacific trip, as the players jitterbug in the ocean liner’s ballroom and practice on its deck “under a sky of endless blue.” Ages 4–7. [em]Author’s agent: Erin Murphy, Erin Murphy Literary Agency. (Mar.) [/em]