Skip to main content

Miracle Mud

By


Miracle Mud:
Lena Blackburne and the Secret Mud that Changed Baseball
by David A. Kelly
illustrated by Oliver Dominguez

Lerner Pub Group. April 2013. 
unpaged. picture book biography

Lena Blackburne wanted to be a famous ballplayer. He tried playing every position for many different teams, but he just wasn't good enough. Although Lena Blackburne was not a star baseball player, he loved everything about the game. After he retired he stayed close to the game and found somewhere he could help out. Before a game, the baseballs would be prepped so they weren't as slick and shiny. However, the methods being used caused the balls to be soft, soggy, sticky or stinky. Nobody liked this and it was difficult to throw the ball and to hit it. Lena set his mind to coming up with a solution and eventually stumbled upon it by accident. He found a muddy area near his home in New Jersey with the perfect slop to take care of the balls. 75 years later, the same muddy place is being harvested to keep major league baseballs in tip-top shape. Lena Blackburne may not have been Hall of Fame material, but his mud sure is!
Miracle Mud is beautifully illustrated and the text is written in a fun but informative manner. Long-time baseball fans and random readers alike will enjoy this story of a lesser known aspect of baseball life.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dude, That's Rude! (Get Some Manners) by Pamela Espeland & Elizabeth Verdick

By
If there's one book today's kids need to read, it is Dude, That's Rude! (Get Some Manners) . The authors provide a fun format for teaching etiquette to children. They discuss proper behavior at home, at school, at other people's homes and in public places. The information is completely up-to-date with cellphone manners and netiquette included. Fun, cartoony illustrations are on practically every page giving the book great visual appeal. This book is perfect for boys and girls in the fourth grade or older. WARNING: Bodily functions are discussed.
Post a Comment
Read more

Faces of the Moon by Bob Crelin

By loo
Faces of the Moon by Bob Crelin Illustrated by Leslie Evans Charlesburg; 2009; unpaged Faces of the Moon is a short nonfiction book that describes the different phases of the moon and why the moon appears like it does on certain nights. This book is short and sweet so even the youngest of moon lovers will enjoy it. The layout is simplistic and easy to follow. I don’t know much about the moon so I found it very interesting.
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: The Factory

By
The Factory By Catherine Egan New York, NY : Scholastic Inc., 2025. Fiction. 306 pages.  Thirteen-year-old Asher Doyle has been invited to join the Factory, a secretive research facility in the desert which ostensibly extracts renewable energy from the electromagnetic fields of its young recruits. But Asher soon realizes something sinister is going on. Kids are getting sick. The adults who run the Factory seem to be keeping secrets. And the extraction process is not only painful and exhausting, but existentially troubling. Asher makes a handful of new friends who help him with an investigation that turns into a resistance, which turns into...a cliffhanger! The Factory is a page-turning sci-fi with multidimensional characters, an intriguing plot, and refreshingly straight-forward writing. Egan weaves in detail about climate crises and social unrest, making the story's dystopian setting feel rich and plausible. With its sophisticated themes and accessible storytelling, I would recomm...
Post a Comment
Read more