A Long Pitch Home
- Subject
- Social Themes - Emigration & Immigration
- Age
- 9-12 years
- Format
- Trade Paperback
- Pages
- 256
- Publisher
- Charlesbridge Publishing
- Size
- 15.2 cm × 22.6 cm
- ISBN
- 9781580898263
A sensitive and endearing middle grade novel about a young Pakistani immigrant adjusting to his new life in contemporary America
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.
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.
Data provided by BiblioShare.
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What reviewers said
When his family moves from Pakistan to America, a Muslim boy who loves cricket faces a year of adjustment and life without his father. Just before his 10th birthday, Bilal moves from Karachi to Virginia with his mother and younger siblings to live with extended family until his father, Baba, can join them. When his cousin enrolls him in summer baseball camp because baseball's "America's version of cricket," Bilal's days are filled with endless "sames and differents." A champion cricket player in Karachi, Bilal knows he's the worst baseball player on a team where the best player's a girl named…
Bilal's world is turned upside down when his father disappears for three days from their home in Karachi, Pakistan. After his father returns just as unexpectedly, Bilal, his mother, and his two siblings leave almost immediately for America to live with his uncle's family. Bilal slowly learns that his father has been accused of a crime he didn't commit and must clear his name before he can join them. Although Bilal's extended family in Virginia is welcoming, the 10-year-old longs for his father and life back home. Lorenzi (Flying the Dragon) uses Bilal's candid first-person perspective to…
Bilal's 10th birthday doesn't go as he planned: after his father encounters some trouble at work, Bilal, his siblings, and his mother get visas to live with their family in Virginia while Bilal's father stays on in Pakistan for the time being. Immediately upon arriving in America, Bilal notices that some things are the same--familiar Pakistani foods and Muslim customs--yet other things are startlingly different. The English Bilal learned in Karachi seems different from the language spoken by everyone around him. Bilal, an excellent cricket player, is dismayed to learn that Americans play…
When 10-year-old Bilal moves from Pakistan to Virginia, it's not just his favorite sport--cricket--that he misses but also his much beloved father, who had to temporarily stay behind. His older cousin suggests that Bilal join the baseball team in order to make new friends and learn English, but baseball isn't anything like cricket! To make matters worse, there's a girl on the team who's better than everyone, drawing the team's wrath, but Bilal actually likes her. How can he adjust to a new sport, a new language, and a new culture while waiting for his dad to join the family? This sensitive…
