The Aurora County All-stars

by Wiles, Deborah

• ISBN13: 9780152060688
• ISBN10: 0152060685
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-08-01
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Summary

Twelve-year-old House Jackson--star pitcher and team captain of the Aurora County All-Stars--has been sidelined for a whole sorry year with a broken elbow. He's finally ready to play, but wouldn't you know that the team's only game of the year has been scheduled for the exact same time as the town's 200th-anniversary pageant. Now House must face the pageant's director, full-of-herself Frances Shotz (his nemesis and perpetrator of the elbow break), and get his team out of this mess. There's also the matter of a mysterious old recluse who has died and left House a wheezy old dog named Eudora Welty--and a puzzling book of poetry by someone named Walt Whitman. Through the long, hot month of June, House makes surprising and valuable discoveries about family, friendship, poetry . . . and baseball.

Author Biography

DEBORAH WILES is the author of Each Little Bird That Sings, a National Book Award finalist and winner of the E. B. White Read Aloud Award for Older Readers, and Love, Ruby Lavender, an ALA Notable Children's Book, a Children's Book Sense 76 Pick, and a New York Public Library Book for Reading and Sharing. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

 

Excerpts

Chapter 1To me, every hour of the day and nightis an unspeakably perfect miracle.WALT WHITMANMr. Norwood Rhinehart Beauregard Boyd, age eighty-eight, philanthropist, philosopher, and maker of mystery, died on a June morning in Mabel, Mississippi, at home in his bed.He died at the simmering time just before daybreak. Crickets tucked themselves under rocks for the day. Blue jays chitter-chattered in the pines. High above the treetops, cirrus clouds wisped across a slate blue sky.Mr. Norwood Rhinehart Beauregard Boyd lay unbreathing on a feather mattress surrounded by a carved rosewood bed frame with a high headboard that he had bought in Madagascar on his travels many years ago, before he closed himself up in his house with his treasures.All night long the June bugs had tap-tap-tapped against the glass panes at the open bedroom window, trying to buzz into Mr. Norwood Boyds room and touch the lamplight. As the light came into the day, the hard-shelled little insects fell into an opening between the glass and the screen, where they hummed together at the bottom of the window in soft confusion. Outside the window, deep in the tall weeds, a garter snake slithered in search of mice. It was June 17. A Thursday.Mr. Norwood Boyd died a quiet death attended by sky, clouds, crickets, birds, bugs, snakes, and one human being: House Jackson. House Jackson, age twelve, crackerjack baseball pitcher, obedient son, and keeper of his own counsel, had arrived just before the simmering time. He eased himself gingerly into a ladder-back chair next to the carved bed. He held his breath as he watched Mr. Norwood Boyd breathe and stare at the ceiling in a faraway silence. Instinctively for it had been his habit he reached for the book on the bedside table. Treasure Island. He opened it to the page that had been saved with a ribboned bookmark, and read out loud in a mechanical voice: Still, Silver was unconquered. I could hear his teeth rattle in his head; but he had not yet surrendered.At that moment, Mr. Norwood Boyd surrendered. He closed his eyes and opened his mouth. A rattling sound came from his throat. The smell of Mr. Norwoods rattled breath made House blink and sit back in his folding chair. That breath the sound of it and the smell of it traveled the entire room, spangling the air like a salute, as if that breath was a last farewell to the big old bed, a last farewell to the lighted lamp, a last farewell to the rose-patterned carpet, to the bureau where the clothes were kept, to the bedside table where water shimmered in the glass, and to House, who had been faithful.When there was no more rattle and no more breath, House did as he had been instructed to do. He called Doc MacRees office from the big black telephone beside Mr. Norwood Boyds bed. His fingers trembled as he dialed, and his voice cracked as he tried to speak.Mr. Norwood Boyd. He was out of breath. Who is this? asked a cranky-voiced Miss Betty Ramsey at the doctors answering serv

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Excerpted from The Aurora County All-Stars by Deborah Wiles
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