Cleaning out his neighbor's attic, a gawky 12-year-old discovers a mint-condition Honus Wagner 1909, $450,000 baseball card. In this addition to the Baseball Card Adventures series, baseball, time travel and magic converge for, in <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">PW's words, a "joyfully entertaining yarn that hits at least a triple." Ages 8-12. (<EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">Mar.)

Joe Stoshack and his mom aren't rich, so when Joe finds a valuable baseball card in an old lady's attic, he thinks he's got it made. Joe is an avid baseball card collector so he knows that the Honus Wagner card is baseball's rarest find. What he doesn't know is that the card has properties that allow both Joe and Honus Wagner to travel through time. Joe (now rather inexplicably a man) even gets to play in the 1909 World Series. This peppy, pleasing offering is well researched and should delight young baseball fans; even readers not into sports will enjoy the fantasy elements. The inclusion of a few historical photos is a nice touch, too. Since Joe's ability to travel in time comes through his touching certain baseball cards, expect more trips with Joe around long-ago bases. (Reviewed April 15, 1997)

While cleaning out a neighbor's attic, Joe finds a valuable Honus Wagner baseball card. As Joe equivocates over keeping the card, he has several mystical encounters with Wagner, and time travels to 1909, where he gets to play in the World Series. Baseball fans will enjoy the sports action; others will find the protagonist remote and the prose more efficient than inspired. Illustrated with black-and-white historic photos.

When baseball nut Joe Stoshack, 12, finds a mint condition Honus Wagner baseball card, he discovers that it is more than the world's most valuable card: It is also a granter of wishes and a time-travel portal, through which Wagner visits him in the present, and Joe goes to the 1909 World Series. Thoroughly researched and illustrated with black-and-white period photographs of Wagner, this delightful story is hardly marred by the gratuitous subplot involving an attempt to steal the card. In the meantime, Joe lives out the dream of millions of kids: He befriends the greatest player ever, is coached by him until he becomes a top-notch player himself, learns a few life lessons along the way, and gets to play in the majors. A good fantasy for any baseball fanatic, this includes an author's note, information on the baseball card, Wagner's career stats, and his tips for kids. (Fiction. 11+)"

Gr 4-7--Seventh-grader "Flattop" Kincaid switches on a computer game he bought from a bearded old man and is transported to 12th-century England, baseball uniform and all. Scott tries to make the setting realistic, with all-too-specific details of filthy living conditions, unsanitary habits, a high mortality rate, and rigid class attitudes, but as everyone--except Flattop--speaks formal, educated English ("You have had a frightful experience," exclaims a serf), it's a real strain to suspend disbelief. The family Flattop discovers slaughtered by robbers, along with the tales he hears of children dying of disease, seem out of place in what is otherwise a light comedy. After eating food scraps out of never-washed bowls, sharing a vermin-infested bed, and nearly getting his throat cut by a brigand, Flattop longs for the fresh vegetables, comforts, and corn dogs of home--but to escape, he has to find the old wizard, who has been popping up periodically to explain the rules, thumb his nose, or deliver sage advice. The hunt turns out to be an easy one, requiring neither guile nor courage--the boy (literally) runs into his mentor in the local castle, and poof! he's back in his bedroom, clean and free of lice, with a new appreciation for green beans and his parents. Scott has done some homework, but the historical detail is more lurid than vivid, and as farce this lags behind Jon Scieszka's "Time Warp Trio" series (Viking).--John Peters, New York Public Library