With elements from two Shakespeare plays, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Much Ado About Nothing, Ms. LaRocca weaves a story about baseball and friendship and teamwork. The chapters in this middle grade novel are told in alternating voices, switching from twelve-year old Trish, who’s a winner in both baseball and math, to her teammate Ben, who feels like a loser in both baseball and math. The two of them begin as adversaries, and they end up finding that they have much in common.

Much Ado About Baseball is a puzzle book, similar to:

• The Puzzling World of Winston Breen by Eric Berlin.
• The Potato Chip Puzzles by Eric Berlin.
• The Puzzler’s Mansion by Eric Berlin.
• The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
• The Gollywhopper Games by Jody Feldman, reviewed at Semicolon.
• The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart, reviewed at Semicolon.
• Escape From Mr. Lemoncello’s Library by Chris Grabenstein, reviewed at Semicolon.

These books all incorporate puzzles and games and thinking challenges into the story to appeal to both the mathematically inclined and the mystery fans among us. In Much Ado, Ben and Trish have to solve the puzzle of how to become friends and how to work together as teammates as well as working through the mysteries of family relationships and baseball. The book begins with the words, “Baseball is magic. Time stops between the instant the ball is released and when it makes it over the plate, between the whack of the bat and when the ball finally touches earth again.” And it ends with, “Baseball was magic. Math was magic, too. And thanks to them both, I had family and friends, in the perfect proportion.”

Nothing is terribly profound here, but there is some interplay between logic and imagination, and thoughts about making room for both. The Shakespeare references will be fun for children who are familiar with the plays, and perhaps those who haven’t yet tasted any Shakespearean goodness might be enticed to do so. It’s a fun romp with some Indian American characters in everyday situations, baseball magic, math puzzles, a girl playing baseball and excelling at math, and Shakespeare. What more could you ask for?