ALA Booklist (Mon Nov 01 00:00:00 CST 1993)

When 13-year-old Minnesota farm boy Billy Baggs picks up a stray baseball that has landed outside the right-field fence and fires the ball on the fly to the catcher, we can't help but say to ourselves, Oh, yes, that story, the one about the country bumpkin with the golden arm who joins the local team and takes his teammates all the way to the championship. Fortunately, Weaver's novel isn't that story--it's close, but it's not quite The Natural, Redux or Rocky, Part 501. The difference, finally, isn't what happens on the ball field, which is, by and large, what you'd expect, give or take a strikeout or two, but what happens back on the farm. Oh, there's the expected family drama, what with Billy's grumpy father, who can't get over the accidental death of Billy's brother and is taking it out on poor Ma, who wants a job in town, and poor Billy, who'd like some time away from the farm to play ball and admire girls' breasts. He gets both eventually; Ma finds a swell job; and even Pa shows signs of lightening up, but along the way to this dysfunctional family's inevitable return to form, Weaver delivers some of the most vivid descriptions of farm work you'll find anywhere. The coming-of-age is basically a yawn, the baseball is hit-and-miss, but the scene where Billy and Pa gut and skin a heifer, carefully saving its liver for dinner, is stunning. Not a lot of boys know how to fork a liver, says Pa. The same could be said of children's authors. (Reviewed Nov. 1, 1993)

Horn Book

Five years after a farming accident killed Billy Baggs's older brother, the Baggs family still struggles to cope and adapt to life without Robert. As Billy's mother finds a job to help the family's income, his father tries to form a stronger relationship with his remaining son, and Billy discovers that he has a great talent for baseball. The lengthy plot leaves some questions unanswered.

Kirkus Reviews

A meaty story of a hard-working Minnesota farm family, still grieving five years after a son's accidental death. <p> A meaty story of a hard-working Minnesota farm family, still grieving five years after a son's accidental death. This summer, change is in the air: on a rare trip into town with his bitterly reclusive father, Billy, 13, rockets a ball back into the local baseball field and the stunned coach invites him to join the team; and Billy's mother breaks out of her cocoon to teach herself to type and land a job. Weaver describes the grueling work of farming in exact, engrossing (and sometimes hilarious) detail; and, with equal precision, Billy's education on the ballfield. The author expertly braids together plotlines pleasant and painful (including a particularly nasty one--a sleazy hired-hand rapes Billy's teenaged neighbor and threatens to accuse him if anyone talks), though many of these subplots dangle at the end, giving little sense of closure. Still, the complex characters grow and change in profoundly real ways; Weaver puts intense experience and emotion both within and between the lines; and his story--as rich in meaning as the title--is buoyed by optimism: ``Summer was over, yes. But there was next summer. There was always next summer.'' (Fiction. 12-15)</p> "

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

In this story of a 13-year-old Minnesota boy's adjustment to a hardscrabble existence, PW found a wealth of lovingly recounted details'' andflashes of humor [that] serve as relief.'' Ages 10-up. (Apr.)

School Library Journal

Gr 8-12-This novel opens with a rather grisly description of the death of Billy Baggs's older brother in a tractor accident. The action quickly shifts to five years later, when 13-year-old Billy is still wrestling with guilt over Robert's death. An opportunity to play summer baseball offers him some hope of regaining the equilibrium in his life, but his family's numbing rural poverty and his parents' own failure to come to grips with their son's death present further obstacles. This is not strictly a sports book, as other threads in the plot involve a pair of sexy farm sisters and accusations of rape; the beginnings of independence for Mrs. Baggs; and Billy's friendship with a slightly loony member of the baseball team. Unfortunately, not all of these threads come together at the end, and one gets the feeling that either a sequel is in the works or that Weaver tried to stuff too much into an already long text. The author also gets a few details wrong-Dodgers pitcher Sandy Koufax had already been retired for four years in 1970, but appears on the covers of all the sports magazines. The strongest parts of the story involve the gritty, unromantic descriptions of farm life, and the honest depiction of the deep emotions of the major characters. This depth of feeling makes readers really care about the family, and is probably enough to make this uneven and unruly book worth a purchase.-Todd Morning, Schaumburg Township Public Library, IL