Review: A Long Pitch Home by Natalie Dias Lorenzi

A Long Pitch Home

by Natalie Dias Lorenzi

September 6, 2016

Charlesbridge

Ten-year-old Bilal liked his life back home in Pakistan. He was a star on his cricket team. But when his father suddenly sends the family to live with their aunt and uncle in America, nothing is familiar. While Bilal tries to keep up with his cousin Jalaal by joining a baseball league and practicing his English, he wonders when his father will join the family in Virginia. Maybe if Bilal can prove himself on the pitcher’s mound, his father will make it to see him play. But playing baseball means navigating relationships with the guys, and with Jordan, the only girl on the team—the player no one but Bilal wants to be friends with.

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When ten year old Bilal and his family leave Pakistan, he must adjust to the often confusing and hectic life of America. Making new friends, learning English, fitting in, and learning to like America is not easy for Bilal, especially when he misses his father, back in Pakistan, so much. Hoping to make his father proud and speed up his arrival, Bilal joins a local baseball team, but finds that baseball is not at all like his beloved cricket, especially when one of his teammates turns out to be a talented girl.

Natalie Dias Lorenzi’s A Long Pitch Home is a thoughtful and tender middle-grade story that deftly explores the immigration experience through the honest and observant eyes of a child. Bilal’s story is an important one, as it reflects the lives and experiences of so many young readers in America today. Lorenzi carefully and respectfully explores Bilal’s Pakistani culture and customs, creating an immersive and authentic reading experience. Young readers will enjoy Bilal’s unique perspective and learning about his culture, but they will also find many aspects of his life (family dynamics, wanting to fit in, friendship issues, etc) to be very relatable and relevant to their own lives.

Bilal, his family members, and Jordan (the one girl on his team) are all engaging, well-developed characters, that young readers will enjoy getting to know and find very likable.

My final thoughts: With a heartfelt message, excellent storytelling, and unforgettable main character, A Long Pitch Home will amuse, educate, and leave a mark.

4/5 Cupcakes

Natalie Dias Lorenzi is a teacher, librarian, mother, wife and traveler. She has lived in seven US states, and in Germany, Italy and Japan, and traveled to more places than she can count (and she can count pretty high). Like Skye and Hiroshi, the main characters in her debut middle grade novel Flying the Dragon, Natalie knows what it's like to make a complete fool of herself in another language. That said, she highly recommends the technique of throwing yourself into a new language, even if you're not ready. Visit Natalie at www.nataliediaslorenzi.com (no passport required). Website / Facebook / Twitter

A Long Pitch Home Blog Tour {interview & giveaway}

I'm so excited to have the A Long Pitch Home Blog Tour stopping by today...

A Long Pitch Home

by Natalie Dias Lorenzi

September 6, 2016

Charlesbridge

Ten-year-old Bilal liked his life back home in Pakistan. He was a star on his cricket team. But when his father suddenly sends the family to live with their aunt and uncle in America, nothing is familiar. While Bilal tries to keep up with his cousin Jalaal by joining a baseball league and practicing his English, he wonders when his father will join the family in Virginia. Maybe if Bilal can prove himself on the pitcher’s mound, his father will make it to see him play. But playing baseball means navigating relationships with the guys, and with Jordan, the only girl on the team—the player no one but Bilal wants to be friends with.

Goodreads / Amazon / B&N / Indiebound

Praise for A Long Pitch Home

“As she did in Flying the Dragon (2012), Lorenzi sympathetically captures the challenges of cultural relocation. A warm, sensitive, realistic portrait of a Muslim boy adjusting to contemporary America.” ~ Kirkus Reviews

“Filled with details about Pakistani and Muslim life…Lorenzi’s novel offers a sensitive look at the cultural merging that accompanies immigration.” ~ Publishers Weekly

What three words best describe your book, A Long Pitch Home?

• family

• friendship

• fish-out-of-water (That counts as one word, right? ☺)

Can you give us your best one sentence pitch to convince readers, especially reluctant readers, to give A Long Pitch Home a try?

Bilal is a cricket-playing boy from Pakistan who must unexpectedly leave everything behind to start a new life in the U.S., which is about as easy as hitting a 65-mph knuckleball at the bottom of the ninth with bases loaded.

Grab a copy of A Long Pitch Home and answer the following:

Favorite chapter?

Chapter 28 is one of my favorite chapters, because that’s when Bilal learns the meaning of friendship—not only how to be a friend, but what it means to have a friend who is true.

Favorite page?

If I tell you my favorite page, it would give too much away, so I’ll tell you that my second favorite page is the very last line on page 217. This line is full of possibilities for Bilal—possibilities that could either save the day or go horribly wrong.

Favorite setting?

Nat’s Stadium, home of the Washington Nationals baseball team. When writing A Long Pitch Home, I took a behind-the-scenes tour of the stadium, and it is absolutely awe-inspiring.

Flip to a random page and give us a 1-2 sentences teaser:

When Bilal is making a list of things that his best friend and cricket teammate back in Pakistan should know about American baseball, he says this:

“Home runs are only worth four points at the most, and only if the bases are loaded. If someone hits a home run with the bases loaded, do not high-five everyone as they cross home plate and yell, ‘Six points for us!’”

(This line pretty much typifies Bilal’s epic struggle to learn this strange, new game called baseball.)

What inspired A Long Pitch Home? How did the story come to be?

I wanted to take a minor character from my first middle grade novel, Flying the Dragon, and tell that story. As an elementary school teacher, I’ve taught many Pakistani and Pakistani-American kids over the years, yet I couldn’t find any middle grade novels with characters from that culture. I spent many hours researching in order to craft a proposal for my publisher, Charlesbridge, which consisted of three chapters and a synopsis. Once Charlesbridge acquired the novel, I then had to write it! That meant more and more research…

How did you approach writing, for the middle-grade audience, about a character from another country and culture? For you, why is it so important to include diverse characters and experiences in kids lit?

The more I researched Bilal’s culture, the more I realized how much I still had to learn. I turned to three people who are familiar with Pakistani and Pakistani-American culture, including fellow children’s author Hena Khan. They answered my endless questions and read through my manuscript several times. Without their feedback, Bilal’s story never would have been a published book. You’ve heard of books as mirrors and windows, and I hope A Long Pitch Home will be a mirror for some readers and a window for others.

Can you tell us a bit about your character, Bilal? What makes him special and what do you love about him?

Bilal is a lot like I was in 5th grade—the new kid in class who is clueless about American culture. That wasn’t completely true in my case—my parents are American—but I had lived in Germany from the age of 7 to 10. At the end of September of my 5th grade year, we moved to Texas, a place I’d never been before. Unlike Bilal, I had no trouble with English, but I felt far removed from my peers who were well-versed in popular culture—songs, movies, and TV shows (and this was in the pre-Internet days!). As tough as that year was for me, Bilal has an even tougher time as he struggles with English, trades his favorite sport, cricket, for the unfamiliar sport of baseball, and all the while hopes for news that his father will be able to leave Pakistan to join the family. Bilal definitely makes mistakes, but his vulnerability is what makes him endearing to me.

What do you hope readers will learn or walk away with after reading A Long Pitch Home?

Along those same lines of mirrors and windows, my hope is that readers who are familiar with Pakistani-American culture will recognize a bit of themselves in the pages, and readers who are unfamiliar with the culture will walk away with understanding and empathy for what it’s like to leave everything behind in your country and start at new life.

What’s the best part about being a middle-grade author?

Being a school librarian, I love hearing feedback from my students—not just about my books, but about middle grade books in general. They don’t hold back in telling what they love (and don’t love!) about the books they read, and it’s all good fodder for my own writing.

Fill in the blanks:

I’m really awesome at matching readers with books that they like, which is a big part of my day job as a school librarian. Although I don’t always get it right, I appreciate the discussions that I have with my students about what makes them tick as readers.

I’m really embarrassed to admit that I have absolutely zero sense of direction. GPS is the best thing that could have ever happened to my car.

The last great book I read was The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. I’d read it back when it was first published, and now my daughter is reading it for her summer English assignment for high school. She asked me to reread it so we could talk about it, and I was reminded all over again what a masterful story it is.

If you were to bake a cupcake inspired by A Long Pitch Home, what would it look and taste like, and what would you call it?

I think that Bilal would appreciate a jalebi-topped cupcake! Jalebi is a typical sweet found in Karachi, Pakistan, an orange treat made from deep-fried wheat flour batter formed into a spiral shape and dipped into a sugar syrup, which would make the perfect cupcake topper. For the cupcake part, I’d choose a chocolate malt cake with fudge frosting, which is the type of birthday cake that Bilal was supposed to have before the family had to up and move to the U.S., leaving his cake sitting in the Pie in the Sky bakery back in Karachi, Pakistan.

Natalie Dias Lorenzi is a teacher, librarian, mother, wife and traveler. She has lived in seven US states, and in Germany, Italy and Japan, and traveled to more places than she can count (and she can count pretty high). Like Skye and Hiroshi, the main characters in her debut middle grade novel Flying the Dragon, Natalie knows what it's like to make a complete fool of herself in another language. That said, she highly recommends the technique of throwing yourself into a new language, even if you're not ready. Visit Natalie at www.nataliediaslorenzi.com (no passport required). Website / Facebook / Twitter

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Interview and Giveaway: Natalie Dias Lorenzi

I'm very excited to have Natalie Dias Lorenzi stop by today for an interview! Natalie is the author of the MG book, Flying the Dragon. You can win my ARC of this book below the interview and be sure to check out my review.

Q1. What three words best describe your book Flying the Dragon?
Caught between cultures...
Q2. In one sentence, tell readers why they should read your book.
Flying the Dragon is for any reader who has ever felt like a fish-out-of-water.
Q3. Now, using as many sentences as you’d like, can you tell us a bit more about Flying the Dragon?
At its heart, Flying the Dragon is about finding one’s place in this world. The two main characters, cousins Skye and Hiroshi, each feel out of place for different reasons; Japanese-American Skye has all but forgotten her Japanese heritage until her estranged Japanese relatives come to town. Her parents make her attend Saturday Japanese school to improve her Japanese language skills, which threatens her chances to play on the All-Star soccer team. Hiroshi, on the other hand, has been plucked from his small village in Japan and moves to the US with his family, where he has no friends, doesn’t speak English, and struggles to navigate his way through American culture and slang. Both compete for the love of their grandfather, a kite-maker and rokkaku kite-fighting expert. It isn’t until the two work together to honor their grandfather in the local kite battle in Washington DC that they learn the meaning of honor and family and self-identity.
Q4. What inspired the idea/story behind Flying the Dragon?
The inspiration for Flying the Dragon came from three main parts of my life. First, as an ESL teacher, my students come from all over the world and most come to the US knowing very little English. Once they’ve been here for about a year or so, things start to shift; they want to assimilate and become more like the American peers in the ways they talk, dress, and act. At the same time, their parents still speak to them in their native tongues and abide by customs that match what they were familiar with in their home countries.  There are elements of my students in both Skye and Hiroshi.

Secondly, I lived in Yokohama, Japan for two years, and experienced first-hand what it’s like to not know the language or culture of your new home. Unlike, Hiroshi, I had the luxury of spending my day at the international school where I taught with colleagues and students who spoke English all day. I was fortunate to catch a glimpse of this intricate culture and try out my fledgling Japanese language skills, which was not easy!

Lastly, I was an Air Force brat growing up, and attended five different elementary schools. I know what it’s like to be the new kid in class, and it’s never easy until you’re settled in and have made friends.

All of these experiences are threads in the tapestry of this story.
Q5. What do you hope readers will walk away with from this inspiring story?
As a teacher, my hope for all students is that they will connect with the characters in the books they read. When we connect to characters, it feels like we’re stepping into their world; they feel like friends. Some readers will identify with Hiroshi, who doesn’t fit in at all in his new school. Some will identify with Skye, who is caught between two cultures and languages and needs to decide who she really is. Readers who haven’t experienced these situations may still connect with the core emotions that come with Skye’s and Hiroshi’s stories. Even if a reader doesn’t feel caught between two cultures, he or she may feel tugged between two very different groups of friends, or two households when parents separate. Readers who have a relative who is ill, like Grandfather in the story, may feel a connection to the different ways in which Skye and Hiroshi deal with Grandfather’s illness. No matter how readers connect to the story, that reader connection is what authors hope for when they send their books out into the world.
Q6. Kites play an important role in Flying the Dragon, especially one with a beautiful dragon painted on it. What significant symbol/picture would you want painted on YOUR kite?
What a great question! I think I’d have a colorful map of the world, marked with the places where I’ve lived and traveled.
Q7. In Flying the Dragon, American born Skye teaches her Japanese born cousin Hiroshi helpful American slang words, like cool and sucks. What three American slang words would top your Helpful Tips list for a non-English speaking person?
Slang is one of the hardest things to learn in a foreign language, next to humor. My husband is Italian, and when we met in Italy, he spoke very little English. When we moved to Japan and later the US, he learned to speak English, and slang was probably his biggest hurdle. Even traffic reports befuddled him with terms like “rubber-necking” and “bumper-to-bumper.” I had similar struggles when I was first learning Italian.

For my students, here are the top three slang terms that usually surprised them:
--“friend” as a verb—thanks to Facebook
--“like” as a speech tag, as in, “She was like, ‘Where’s your homework?’ and I was all like, ‘My little brother ate it.’”
--“Get out,” meaning, “Are you kidding?” For example, a student might say, “I have four tests tomorrow!” and her friend may respond with, “Get out!” This can definitely confuse some students who are new to English!
Q8.  Skye and Hiroshi are wonderful MG characters...who is your all-time favorite middle grade character?
Thanks for the kind words about Skye and Hiroshi! This is a really hard question, because there are so many to choose from. One recent middle grade character who comes to mind is Carley Connors in Lynda Mullaly Hunt’s middle grade novel One for the Murphys. Carley is tough and scared and protective of those she comes to love. She comes from a heartbreaking home life and has to learn to let other people love her. She is one of the bravest characters I’ve met in a long time.
Q9. What's the one book you think everyone should read at least once in their life?
This is so hard to answer, because there are so many kinds of readers out there. I hope I’m not taking the easy way out by not naming a specific title, but I will say that I think everyone should read a book with a protagonist who is completely different from the reader. I would hope that, say, a teen born and raised in the southern US might read a book like Mitali Perkins’ Bamboo People, a young adult novel about two teenage boys on opposite sides of the modern-day conflict in Burma. Or an immigrant girl living in San Francisco might read Audrey Vernick’s middle grade novel Water Balloon, about a girl born and raised in the same town whose comfortable life starts to crumble when her parents divorce and her lifelong friends turn out to not be the people she’d thought them to be.

I know that I’m always recommending books whose characters share similar experiences with my students. But sometimes it’s necessary to step out of the familiar in order to discover characters with whom we don’t think we’ll have anything in common. When we discover that emotions are universal, even when circumstances are not, that’s when we start to look at the world through a more empathetic lens.
Q10. If you were to bake a Flying the Dragon inspired cupcake what would it taste/look like and what would you call it? Oh, great question! At one point in the story, Skye samples Hiroshi’s favorite sweet, a Japanese yomogi mochi. She actually likes it until Hiroshi tells her what’s in it: sweet rice and bean paste. If I could, I’d create a cupcake that looks like a yomogi mochi on the outside, but with a more American version of sweet on the inside—maybe chocolate with a thin layer of peanut butter in the center. Mmmmm....

Thanks so much for hosting me on Word Spelunking!

You are so very welcome! Thank so much for answering my questions!

American-born Skye knows very little of her Japanese heritage. Her father taught her to speak the language, but when their estranged Japanese family, including Skye's grandfather, suddenly move to the United States, Skye must be prepared to give up her All-Star soccer dreams to take Japanese lessons and to help her cousin, Hiroshi adapt to a new school. Hiroshi, likewise, must give up his home and his hopes of winning the rokkaku kite-fighting championship with Grandfather. Faced with language barriers, culture clashes and cousin rivalry, Skye and Hiroshi have a rocky start. But a greater shared loss brings them together. They learn to communicate, not only through language, but through a common heritage and sense of family honor. At the rokkaku contest at the annual Washington Cherry Blossom Festival, Hiroshi and Skye must work as a team in order to compete with the best.

Find the author: Website / Goodreads / Twitter

Purchase: Amazon / B&N / Book Depository

Win an ARC of Flying the Dragon

Since the pubs were awesome enough to send me a finished copy of this book, I'm going to giveaway my ARC!!!

DETAILS

-There will be one winner who will win my ARC

-US ONLY

-Giveaway will run from 6/25 - 7/2

-Fill out Rafflecopter form to enter

• Must be 13+ to enter
• One main entry per person
• Winner will be emailed and must claim prize within 48 hours
• I am NOT responsible for lost, stolen or damaged prizes

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ARC Review: Flying the Dragon

Be sure to check out my interview with Natalie Dias Lorenzi and enter to win my ARC here

TITLE: Flying the Dragon         AUTHOR: Natalie Dias Lorenzi PUB: Charlesbridge                     PUB DATE: 7/1/12 FORMAT: ARC, 240 pgs SOURCE: from pub for review

American-born Skye knows very little of her Japanese heritage. Her father taught her to speak the language, but when their estranged Japanese family, including Skye's grandfather, suddenly move to the United States, Skye must be prepared to give up her All-Star soccer dreams to take Japanese lessons and to help her cousin, Hiroshi adapt to a new school. Hiroshi, likewise, must give up his home and his hopes of winning the rokkaku kite-fighting championship with Grandfather. Faced with language barriers, culture clashes and cousin rivalry, Skye and Hiroshi have a rocky start. But a greater shared loss brings them together. They learn to communicate, not only through language, but through a common heritage and sense of family honor. At the rokkaku contest at the annual Washington Cherry Blossom Festival, Hiroshi and Skye must work as a team in order to compete with the best

THREE WORDS: Moving, Smart, Thought-Provoking

MY REVIEW: Natalie Dias Lorenzi’s Flying the Dragon was such an unexpected treat. This middle grade novel captivated me from beginning to end and touched me deeply.

Different worlds collide when two cousins from different countries learn to work together and just maybe learn from one another. American born and raised Skye knows very little of her Japanese heritage and Japanese born and raised Hiroshi knows very little about American culture. But when Hiroshi, his parents and grandfather move to the US, both Skye and Hiroshi experience culture shock. Skye is forced to go to Japanese lessons and may miss out on playing on the coveted All-Star soccer team, while Hiroshi must miss his long awaited chance to compete in the rokkaka kite fighting contest. But when tragedy strikes and the two kids have a chance to compete in a rokkaka event in Washington the two must band together.

Lorenzi’s contemporary MG read is a wonderfully written exploration of family, love, tradition and growing up. Full of insightful life lessons, lovely characters and profound moments, this book easily held my attention and left me thoughtful.

This is a quick, yet very engaging read. Lorenzi has created a layered and smart story. The author has clearly spent a great deal of time researching the Japanese culture and language and this shines through throughout the book. I didn’t just enjoy reading about Skye and Hiroshi, I also greatly enjoyed reading about the Japanese culture. Younger readers will definitely learn a great deal (and not even realize it!) and hopefully walk away with a fascination for new cultures.

The experiences of both Skye and Hiroshi have been crafted with great care and their stories have been brought to life so beautifully through Lorenzi’s words. From the language barriers to extreme cultural clashes and sometimes hurtful cousin rivalry, there’s a very honest and realistic quality to their relationship. Lorenzi does a great job of exploring Hiroshi’s difficult and overwhelming experience of being plopped into a whole new cultural environment, while Skye’s own confusing journey toward discovering how to be both American, soccer playing Skye and proud Japanese Sorano is very thought-provoking and relatable.

Lorenzi also does a superb job of laying out very vivid settings. Some of my favorite scenes are the kite flying scenes in the park and the exciting rokkaka competition. And speaking of the rokkaka contest, I didn’t even know this was a real thing, but now I have such a desire to build and fly my own kite!

Both Skye and Hiroshi are likable and relatable young characters. Despite their differences, these cousins both have such witty, determined and compassionate personalities. I really loved getting to know them as individuals and as a team. I greatly enjoyed watching their friendship grow and watching them overcome so many obstacles. They’re both such inspiring characters!

Because this is a contemporary, the story can move a little slow and lacks any big thrills, but I think older MG readers will easily fall into Skye and Hiroshi’s story and quickly become attached to these two characters (like I did!).

FINAL THOUGHTS: Smartly and thoughtfully written, Flying the Dragon is a wonderful read that will inspire and captivate readers! This is would make an awesome read aloud book for parents and children to share.

MY RATING

Find the author: Website / Goodreads / Twitter

Purchase: Amazon / B&N / Book Depository

Hop on over and check out my interview with Natalie and enter the ARC giveaway