Guide to Juvenile Baseball Books: Z

Zagwÿn, Deborah Turney. Apple Batter. Berkeley, CA: Tricycle, 1999. Mother and son share an intense summer: she tending apples, he practicing his batting.

Unusual picture book, perhaps a little too fey for some tastes.

Zakarin, Deborah Mostow, Lisa Rojany Buccieri, and Marcela Cabrera. Let's Make Noise: At the Ballpark. Silver Dolphin, 2007. Typical ballpark activities supplemented by electronic sound effects.

Large-scale picture book; the pictures are pleasant enough, but the sound effects become rather irritating over time.

Zappy, Erica. Curious George® Home Run. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2012. Based on a teleplay by Lazar Saric. Friendly monkey makes a mess of a ballpark scoreboard and the concessions orders, but conquers the learning curve in time to pinch-run for a homer.

This beginning reader's cover subtitle reads "curious about number order": one of the concepts that the book teaches is that 1 comes before 2, 3 before 4, and so forth. The anarchy that once propelled the Curious George® brand has been recast as below-level math-skills performance that can be ameliorated by the intervention of education professionals.

Zinnen, Linda. Holding at Third. New York: Dutton, 2004. Young ballplayer copes with his elder brother's cancer treatment.

The baseball elements are weak and the plot stays stuck in neutral, but this is a believable account of a family's struggle with one member's illness.

Zirpoli, Jane. Roots in the Outfield. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988. Boy bonds with his new stepsister and with his baseball hero.

The baseball hero, Slug Smith, resembles stock images of Babe Ruth. The baseball action is weak; the central family drama is light but plausible.