Samurai Shortstop
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Tokyo, 1890. Toyo is caught up in the competitive world of boarding school, and must prove himself to make the team in a new sport called besuboru. But he grieves for his uncle, a samurai who sacrificed himself for his beliefs, at a time when most of Japan is eager to shed ancient traditions. It's only when his father decides to teach him the way of the samurai that Toyo grows to better understand his uncle and father. And to his surprise, the warrior training guides him to excel at baseball, a sport his father despises as yet another modern Western menace. Toyo searches desperately for a way to prove there is a place for his family's samurai values in modern Japan. Baseball might just be the answer, but will his father ever accept a Western game that stands for everything he despises?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Debut novelist Gratz uses baseball to tell the story of Japan's tumultuous transition from 19th-century feudalism to 20th-century Westernized society. In the harrowing first chapter, 15-year-old Toyo witnesses his uncle commit seppuku ritual suicide rather than renounce his samurai lifestyle as the emperor has ordered. As required by custom, Toyo's father decapitates his brother, and Toyo must watch because, his father says, "Soon you will do the same for me." Toyo then begins life at Ichiko, Tokyo's most elite boarding school, haunted by the image of his father tossing his uncle's head onto the funeral pyre. The violence soon becomes more personal, as Ichiko's upper classmen conduct vicious hazing rituals to keep the first-years in line. His father arrives daily to instruct Toyo in bushido the "samurai code" which includes sword-fighting but also meditation and flower arranging. Toyo channels these skills into his passion for a new sport introduced by American gaijin besuboru. Into this well-researched period piece, Gratz drops a few anachronistic sports clich s, climaxing with a Big Game against a team of Americans. Though Toyo finds a way to use the samurai values his father has taught him, his leadership skills don't develop enough for him to protest or withdraw from aiding the enforcement of a brutal punishment against a boy who has strayed from Ichiko's harsh rules, undermining the sympathy readers may have developed for him. Still, this is an intense read about a fascinating time and place in world history. Ages 12-up.
