High Five for Glenn Burke

I will admit to getting a bit teary-eyed as I finished this beautiful middle grade novel on my flight just now because we need this story more than ever. Phil Bildner has crafted a sensitive, beautiful coming out story set in the world of baseball and it is everything I hoped it would be and more. This is for all the kids that think they are broken but aren’t, this is for all of us who see kids within the LGBTQIA community as the complete humans they are. Every kid deserves to have this book in their library, Silas Wade will be with me for a long time. Adding this book to my best books of the year list for elementary and up #pernillerecommends

Wonderful story, beautifully written. An important book to help understand the coming out process - important for queer kids to be reflected with honesty and care, and important for everyone else to help build understanding. And a fantastic dose of baseball jargon and lore. Loved it.

This book is absolutely wonderful. Planning on using it with my middle school book club. It brings up relevant and crucial topics that kids should be reading about now. It was funny, heart-warming, and though-provoking. Plus, the Sandlot references were awesome!

What a fun but so important book! Silas’ voice shines throughout this novel and the author truly captures both the excitement of being part of a team as well as the anxiety kids feel if they are perceived as “different”. The message of “you be you” is a powerful one for any age!

A huge High Five to Phil Bildner for writing such a beautiful book. I can’t wait for my sons to read this. A beautiful and brave journey for Silas and the love and support he gets along the way.

Absolutely beautiful, and absolutely a must read. Other reviewers have already said all the right things, and every bit of it is true.

How much do I love this book? It's a home run. It's free box seats in the second row behind home plate (first row would be pretentious) at a minor league baseball game on a clear & sunny April day, and your favorite batter has just hit a line drive. But more importantly, how much does my 7 year old baseball-loving son love this book? A GRAND SLAM. Phil Bildner knows baseball. My boy loves baseball, history, and chapter books. I knew it might be a stretch to read a middle grade book together with a 7 year old, but he LOVED it right from the start. I actually can't think of a recent book that made him laugh SO much. Given that this spring's Little League season was cancelled, it was great to immerse him in a book that really "got" baseball. The chapters with Silas actually playing the game were pure joy. My son's only request would have been that the last chapter should have had a play-by-play of with actual baseball playing. For a reader younger than the usual interest level for the book, he had no difficulty following the story and there was nothing inappropriate for his age. The only thing that flew over his head was truly understanding why it would have been so hurtful for a character to claim that his platonic friend was actually his girlfriend, as well as the implication that they were doing something "other than karaoke" together. We were both fascinated by the high five history and by the tragic history of how Glenn Burke was treated by the MLB, and we've spent some time reading some articles and watching YouTube videos about Glenn Burke. We both cried halfway through the book when we did our own research on what happened to Glenn Burke after he played for the Dodgers and A's. What I found most interesting (and heartening) in his reaction to the book is that it's also hard for him to understand why it would be so scary for Silas to tell his closest friends and loved ones that he is gay. He has gay uncles, the first wedding he attended was one with two bridges, his mom has gay best friends, he's read Prince and Knight and Sparkle Boy and a dozen other books affirming of different kinds of families and different ways to express gender, and gay marriage has been legal since he's been talking, so he knows no other reality than "love is love". And when I tell him that even when he was an infant, it was illegal in some states for gay people to marry the people they love, it feels like ancient history to him. "But why, Mama? It just makes no sense that people would be so mean about love. It's just love! It's just who you are!" As an older reader, I really *got* the terror that Bildner expressed...the racing words, the racing thoughts, the inability to focus, the pervasive fear. I'm so grateful that, at least in some pockets of our society, this just might not be so scary for our children when they are older. Amidst all the gloom in the world today, I am heartened that I understand Silas' terror more than my child does. This book "gets" baseball and gets baseball players. It gets friendship and it gets how it feels to have loving but busy, distracted parents. It gets adolescence. It gets to the heart of the matter. Get this book!

Thank you to the author and publisher for sharing an early copy with #bookexpedition. This MG novel starts off with 6th grade Silas performing in a school presentation on former MLB player Glenn Burke. Being a baseball player and lover of the game, Silas choose Burke because he invented the high-five. And Silas thinks that’s pretty cool. But it’s more than just that. Silas also feels like he connects with Glenn Burke, a gay baseball player in the 70s. Doing the presentation is a baby step for Silas in moving forward and sharing his own truth. Silas’s story of coming out is one that needs to be shared with our students. With the message that there’s a place on the team for everyone, loads of Sandlot references, and baseball history that needs to be shared, this middle grade novel will be a home run with readers when it publishes in February 2020. Highly recommend, and will purchase for my classroom library.

Reader Review from Early Goodreads Post: I received an ARC from the publisher for early review. I was seven years old in 1977. I might have collected baseball cards if they were on sale at Kmart and I may have actually had a box of Kmart baseball cards that I mixed with Star Wars cards in order to build elaborate card houses that would take up the living room of our mobile home in northern Michigan. One of those cards may have been one of Glenn Burke. But I wouldn't have known about Glenn Burke. Would not have seen his contribution to the game (or to our culture at large). Glenn Burke played major league baseball. And then he didn't. And then he continued to play baseball. Until he didn't. But, this review is not about the reviewer. Or about Glenn Burke (though the book features ((and is about)) Glenn Burke. Passing away at 45 in the early 90's, Burke would have missed the movement that saw LBGTQ+ literature moving away from fiery car crashes and terminal illness narratives of the 70's and 80's and become more of a vehicle wherein queer readers could see themselves. Glenn Burke may have seen the callous and thoughtless treatment of Ryan White. And recognized it as the same treatment he received from some of the most familiar names in baseball that I DID know in the 80s. Glen Burke would not be alive to read POSITIVE, a Paige Rawl's memoir of her experiences in middle school (occurring in the same state ((my state)) that brought us Ryan White). Burke might have lived to see queer kids Dancing. Acting. Singing. Performing. Writing. Becoming scientists. Becoming mathematicians. Working in trades and vocations. Planning for med school. Becoming lawyers. Running for public office. Running for the office of President of the United States. And Burke might have lived to have known an author like David Levithan. And Bill Konigsburg. And Alex London. And he would have loved author, Phil Bildner. A classroom teacher who encouraged a young woman to embrace her talents and to take her writing to new levels to realize the National Book Award with her first book. Glenn Burke would have loved Phil Bildner. He would have given him a high-five. Glenn Burke might have looked at Phil Bildner said to him, "You are a 'five-tool human being." But, Glenn Burke only lived to be 45. Four times the age of the readers who will be inspired by Phil Bildner's new book, A HIGH FIVE FOR GLENN BURKE. And because Glenn Burke is not here to explain it to you, I will do my best to present to you the idea of "five-tool" and how this term applies to Phil Bilder and the new book coming to readers in February 2020. "Five-Tool" players bring five distinct skills to the game of baseball. Phil Bildner is bringing them to a book about. . .okay. . .baseball. But more than this. A HIGH FIVE FOR GLENN BURKE is a love letter back to the baseball of the 70s and 80s when on-the-field antics were expected of large, anthropomorphic chickens and green "phanatics" (side note: these two mascots make their debut in the same window of time as Bildner's book) and of the larger-than-life figures who took the field and found their celebrity. 1. Five-Tool Writers Hit for Average and Put the Bat on the Ball. Bildner knows his audience. Having interacted with Bildner in SKYPE sessions and on conference floors, I can tell you that this man has a heart for middle grade readers. He seems to know them by heart and A HIGH FIVE FOR GLENN BURKE is aimed right for the middle. For the middle school. For the middle grade. For the middle student in the room who might draw something from this new book by way of example or by way of mentor text in acceptance and kindness vs. tolerance. Bildner puts the issue of coming to terms with who we are during a time when no one really knows who they are. The bat is put squarely on the ball in the character of Silas Wade who wrestles with deeper truths as he prepares and presents on Glenn Burke in the opening scenes of the book. 2. Five-Tool Writers Hit for Power and Can Blast the Ball Out of Any Park. Bildner surrounds Silas Wade with a responsive teacher, a STEM-focused friend and confidant, a chaotic household, and a host of teammates with personalities as big and wide as those mentioned in the multiple allusions to THE SAND LOT which serves as a sort of backdrop for the book. Bildner hits for power in creating tension for Silas and his teammates as they are challenged to think about how they "ridicule" their opponents in an age of increasing awareness and sensitivity. The power of A HIGH FIVE FOR GLENN BURKE might come in the form of guiding the reader to a coaching position at third base wherein a temptation builds to bring the main character home. The power that might come of a LGBTQ+ title are all here as we, the reader, get to take a seat in the stands to watch the story play out (no spoilers here; I'll bet you thought I would say something about extra-innings or double-headers). Hitting for power, I'm making a prediction a year and a half out of the ALA YOUTH MEDIA AWARDS to predict A HIGH FIVE FOR GLENN BURKE as a contender for the Stonewall pennant. 3. Five-Tool Writers Can Fly. They Steal Bases and Take Extra Bases. Bildner's allusions to THE SANDLOT will do more for that film than TWILIGHT did for WUTHERING HEIGHTS. Bildner draws (steals) from the history of baseball and the treatment of Burke to present a real and current worry for Silas Wade. Bildner steals from another wildly-popular middle grade book and film to create a tender moment within the book between Silas and his friend. Stealing from history and culture, Bildner's book rounds first, a solid story, second, a contemporary issue whose time has come for whole-class appreciation, third, friends, coaches, and mentors who are personifications of what is means to be supportive helps, and, heading for home, a book with enough heart to place it next to films like RUDY for feel-good and warmth. 4. Five-Tool Writers Can Field. They Catch Everything That Comes Their Way. As a recipient of the ARC for A HIGH FIVE FOR GLENN BURKE, I get to read some of the inside information regarding this book. I get to see how Phil Bildner gets here. His consultations with MG/YA names most recognizable. Phil catches theses consultations and the result of his receptiveness is a new MG LGBTQ+ book that is as informed as it is inspirational. In these consultations, Bildner seems to have learned what "coming is" inside and outside of a book that might be shared with this demographic. 5. Five-Tool Writers Can Throw. Their Arms are Cannons." As I have shared with the reader, I have had interactions with this author. I might even call him a friend. Our high-fives are mostly digital as our greetings become hugs when we do see each other in person. Phil Bildner is the right author to have written this book. He won't have to throw too hard because his heart will know the pitch of the book and how to bring it home to the reader. And as far as "cannons?" I hope this is a misspelling. We'll want LGBTQ+ Middle Grade books like A HIGH FIVE FOR GLENN BURKE to become a part of our "canon." I cannot wait for my teacher and librarian friends to see A HIGH FIVE FOR GLENN BURKE. I hope that I have done some service to the book and to the author, coming out of a sort of convalescence to write a review of the book. Why? Because, like Glenn Burke, I want to be first. And how appropriate would it be for this "first" to also be a celebration of Phil. And Glenn Burke. And stories. And a story's being told. Books. A high five for books. In February, high five your readers with this book. And learn about being a Five-Tool Reader and Teacher and Book Person for young readers.

As much as I love baseball, I wasn’t sure about a male protagonist...I’m more of a ‘girl’ reader. However, right from the beginning I was sucked in by Silas’s enthusiasm and antics, and his obsession with The Sandlot. His teacher made me think of my favorite 6th grade teacher and took me back so many years. His best friend Zoey is a robotics coder and that Is just amazing! I’ve been looking for new books to recommend to my avid sports readers and this one is it... even though it is about so so much more than sports! Way to knock it out of the door park Phil Bildner! Thank you NetGalley for the eARC of this book.

I will admit to getting a bit teary-eyed as I finished this beautiful middle grade novel on my flight just now because we need this story more than ever. Phil Bildner has crafted a sensitive, beautiful coming out story set in the world of baseball and it is everything I hoped it would be and more. This is for all the kids that think they are broken but aren’t, this is for all of us who see kids within the LGBTQIA community as the complete humans they are. Every kid deserves to have this book in their library, Silas Wade will be with me for a long time. Adding this book to my best books of the year list for elementary and up #pernillerecommends

Wonderful story, beautifully written. An important book to help understand the coming out process - important for queer kids to be reflected with honesty and care, and important for everyone else to help build understanding. And a fantastic dose of baseball jargon and lore. Loved it.

This book is absolutely wonderful. Planning on using it with my middle school book club. It brings up relevant and crucial topics that kids should be reading about now. It was funny, heart-warming, and though-provoking. Plus, the Sandlot references were awesome!

What a fun but so important book! Silas’ voice shines throughout this novel and the author truly captures both the excitement of being part of a team as well as the anxiety kids feel if they are perceived as “different”. The message of “you be you” is a powerful one for any age!

A huge High Five to Phil Bildner for writing such a beautiful book. I can’t wait for my sons to read this. A beautiful and brave journey for Silas and the love and support he gets along the way.

Absolutely beautiful, and absolutely a must read. Other reviewers have already said all the right things, and every bit of it is true.

How much do I love this book? It's a home run. It's free box seats in the second row behind home plate (first row would be pretentious) at a minor league baseball game on a clear & sunny April day, and your favorite batter has just hit a line drive. But more importantly, how much does my 7 year old baseball-loving son love this book? A GRAND SLAM. Phil Bildner knows baseball. My boy loves baseball, history, and chapter books. I knew it might be a stretch to read a middle grade book together with a 7 year old, but he LOVED it right from the start. I actually can't think of a recent book that made him laugh SO much. Given that this spring's Little League season was cancelled, it was great to immerse him in a book that really "got" baseball. The chapters with Silas actually playing the game were pure joy. My son's only request would have been that the last chapter should have had a play-by-play of with actual baseball playing. For a reader younger than the usual interest level for the book, he had no difficulty following the story and there was nothing inappropriate for his age. The only thing that flew over his head was truly understanding why it would have been so hurtful for a character to claim that his platonic friend was actually his girlfriend, as well as the implication that they were doing something "other than karaoke" together. We were both fascinated by the high five history and by the tragic history of how Glenn Burke was treated by the MLB, and we've spent some time reading some articles and watching YouTube videos about Glenn Burke. We both cried halfway through the book when we did our own research on what happened to Glenn Burke after he played for the Dodgers and A's. What I found most interesting (and heartening) in his reaction to the book is that it's also hard for him to understand why it would be so scary for Silas to tell his closest friends and loved ones that he is gay. He has gay uncles, the first wedding he attended was one with two bridges, his mom has gay best friends, he's read Prince and Knight and Sparkle Boy and a dozen other books affirming of different kinds of families and different ways to express gender, and gay marriage has been legal since he's been talking, so he knows no other reality than "love is love". And when I tell him that even when he was an infant, it was illegal in some states for gay people to marry the people they love, it feels like ancient history to him. "But why, Mama? It just makes no sense that people would be so mean about love. It's just love! It's just who you are!" As an older reader, I really *got* the terror that Bildner expressed...the racing words, the racing thoughts, the inability to focus, the pervasive fear. I'm so grateful that, at least in some pockets of our society, this just might not be so scary for our children when they are older. Amidst all the gloom in the world today, I am heartened that I understand Silas' terror more than my child does. This book "gets" baseball and gets baseball players. It gets friendship and it gets how it feels to have loving but busy, distracted parents. It gets adolescence. It gets to the heart of the matter. Get this book!

Thank you to the author and publisher for sharing an early copy with #bookexpedition. This MG novel starts off with 6th grade Silas performing in a school presentation on former MLB player Glenn Burke. Being a baseball player and lover of the game, Silas choose Burke because he invented the high-five. And Silas thinks that’s pretty cool. But it’s more than just that. Silas also feels like he connects with Glenn Burke, a gay baseball player in the 70s. Doing the presentation is a baby step for Silas in moving forward and sharing his own truth. Silas’s story of coming out is one that needs to be shared with our students. With the message that there’s a place on the team for everyone, loads of Sandlot references, and baseball history that needs to be shared, this middle grade novel will be a home run with readers when it publishes in February 2020. Highly recommend, and will purchase for my classroom library.

Reader Review from Early Goodreads Post: I received an ARC from the publisher for early review. I was seven years old in 1977. I might have collected baseball cards if they were on sale at Kmart and I may have actually had a box of Kmart baseball cards that I mixed with Star Wars cards in order to build elaborate card houses that would take up the living room of our mobile home in northern Michigan. One of those cards may have been one of Glenn Burke. But I wouldn't have known about Glenn Burke. Would not have seen his contribution to the game (or to our culture at large). Glenn Burke played major league baseball. And then he didn't. And then he continued to play baseball. Until he didn't. But, this review is not about the reviewer. Or about Glenn Burke (though the book features ((and is about)) Glenn Burke. Passing away at 45 in the early 90's, Burke would have missed the movement that saw LBGTQ+ literature moving away from fiery car crashes and terminal illness narratives of the 70's and 80's and become more of a vehicle wherein queer readers could see themselves. Glenn Burke may have seen the callous and thoughtless treatment of Ryan White. And recognized it as the same treatment he received from some of the most familiar names in baseball that I DID know in the 80s. Glen Burke would not be alive to read POSITIVE, a Paige Rawl's memoir of her experiences in middle school (occurring in the same state ((my state)) that brought us Ryan White). Burke might have lived to see queer kids Dancing. Acting. Singing. Performing. Writing. Becoming scientists. Becoming mathematicians. Working in trades and vocations. Planning for med school. Becoming lawyers. Running for public office. Running for the office of President of the United States. And Burke might have lived to have known an author like David Levithan. And Bill Konigsburg. And Alex London. And he would have loved author, Phil Bildner. A classroom teacher who encouraged a young woman to embrace her talents and to take her writing to new levels to realize the National Book Award with her first book. Glenn Burke would have loved Phil Bildner. He would have given him a high-five. Glenn Burke might have looked at Phil Bildner said to him, "You are a 'five-tool human being." But, Glenn Burke only lived to be 45. Four times the age of the readers who will be inspired by Phil Bildner's new book, A HIGH FIVE FOR GLENN BURKE. And because Glenn Burke is not here to explain it to you, I will do my best to present to you the idea of "five-tool" and how this term applies to Phil Bilder and the new book coming to readers in February 2020. "Five-Tool" players bring five distinct skills to the game of baseball. Phil Bildner is bringing them to a book about. . .okay. . .baseball. But more than this. A HIGH FIVE FOR GLENN BURKE is a love letter back to the baseball of the 70s and 80s when on-the-field antics were expected of large, anthropomorphic chickens and green "phanatics" (side note: these two mascots make their debut in the same window of time as Bildner's book) and of the larger-than-life figures who took the field and found their celebrity. 1. Five-Tool Writers Hit for Average and Put the Bat on the Ball. Bildner knows his audience. Having interacted with Bildner in SKYPE sessions and on conference floors, I can tell you that this man has a heart for middle grade readers. He seems to know them by heart and A HIGH FIVE FOR GLENN BURKE is aimed right for the middle. For the middle school. For the middle grade. For the middle student in the room who might draw something from this new book by way of example or by way of mentor text in acceptance and kindness vs. tolerance. Bildner puts the issue of coming to terms with who we are during a time when no one really knows who they are. The bat is put squarely on the ball in the character of Silas Wade who wrestles with deeper truths as he prepares and presents on Glenn Burke in the opening scenes of the book. 2. Five-Tool Writers Hit for Power and Can Blast the Ball Out of Any Park. Bildner surrounds Silas Wade with a responsive teacher, a STEM-focused friend and confidant, a chaotic household, and a host of teammates with personalities as big and wide as those mentioned in the multiple allusions to THE SAND LOT which serves as a sort of backdrop for the book. Bildner hits for power in creating tension for Silas and his teammates as they are challenged to think about how they "ridicule" their opponents in an age of increasing awareness and sensitivity. The power of A HIGH FIVE FOR GLENN BURKE might come in the form of guiding the reader to a coaching position at third base wherein a temptation builds to bring the main character home. The power that might come of a LGBTQ+ title are all here as we, the reader, get to take a seat in the stands to watch the story play out (no spoilers here; I'll bet you thought I would say something about extra-innings or double-headers). Hitting for power, I'm making a prediction a year and a half out of the ALA YOUTH MEDIA AWARDS to predict A HIGH FIVE FOR GLENN BURKE as a contender for the Stonewall pennant. 3. Five-Tool Writers Can Fly. They Steal Bases and Take Extra Bases. Bildner's allusions to THE SANDLOT will do more for that film than TWILIGHT did for WUTHERING HEIGHTS. Bildner draws (steals) from the history of baseball and the treatment of Burke to present a real and current worry for Silas Wade. Bildner steals from another wildly-popular middle grade book and film to create a tender moment within the book between Silas and his friend. Stealing from history and culture, Bildner's book rounds first, a solid story, second, a contemporary issue whose time has come for whole-class appreciation, third, friends, coaches, and mentors who are personifications of what is means to be supportive helps, and, heading for home, a book with enough heart to place it next to films like RUDY for feel-good and warmth. 4. Five-Tool Writers Can Field. They Catch Everything That Comes Their Way. As a recipient of the ARC for A HIGH FIVE FOR GLENN BURKE, I get to read some of the inside information regarding this book. I get to see how Phil Bildner gets here. His consultations with MG/YA names most recognizable. Phil catches theses consultations and the result of his receptiveness is a new MG LGBTQ+ book that is as informed as it is inspirational. In these consultations, Bildner seems to have learned what "coming is" inside and outside of a book that might be shared with this demographic. 5. Five-Tool Writers Can Throw. Their Arms are Cannons." As I have shared with the reader, I have had interactions with this author. I might even call him a friend. Our high-fives are mostly digital as our greetings become hugs when we do see each other in person. Phil Bildner is the right author to have written this book. He won't have to throw too hard because his heart will know the pitch of the book and how to bring it home to the reader. And as far as "cannons?" I hope this is a misspelling. We'll want LGBTQ+ Middle Grade books like A HIGH FIVE FOR GLENN BURKE to become a part of our "canon." I cannot wait for my teacher and librarian friends to see A HIGH FIVE FOR GLENN BURKE. I hope that I have done some service to the book and to the author, coming out of a sort of convalescence to write a review of the book. Why? Because, like Glenn Burke, I want to be first. And how appropriate would it be for this "first" to also be a celebration of Phil. And Glenn Burke. And stories. And a story's being told. Books. A high five for books. In February, high five your readers with this book. And learn about being a Five-Tool Reader and Teacher and Book Person for young readers.

As much as I love baseball, I wasn’t sure about a male protagonist...I’m more of a ‘girl’ reader. However, right from the beginning I was sucked in by Silas’s enthusiasm and antics, and his obsession with The Sandlot. His teacher made me think of my favorite 6th grade teacher and took me back so many years. His best friend Zoey is a robotics coder and that Is just amazing! I’ve been looking for new books to recommend to my avid sports readers and this one is it... even though it is about so so much more than sports! Way to knock it out of the door park Phil Bildner! Thank you NetGalley for the eARC of this book.

I have to admit I am not much of a baseball fan, but I am definitely a fan of this book! I was drawn into Silas' world from the first page and eagerly cheered him on until the last. I loved the relatable characters, relationships, and situations--nothing felt too perfect or two-dimensional. Even the most likable characters had their flaws and made mistakes, thus reflecting the messiness of life that we all face in the real world. Still, they each navigated that messiness in an honest yet hopeful way, which is inspiring. In the end, this book is about hope: hope that we can learn to be who we are while being loved and accepted by those who matter to us, and hope that we can learn to do love and accept others in turn. A perfect choice for classroom sharing, book clubs, and discussions.

This is the book so many of us have been waiting for. Above all, it is engaging and compelling and endearing--mix in some baseball, friendship, family, and the wobbly path to coming out. And on top of all *that*, the real-world origin of the high five, the very symbol saying yeah, cool, we are on the same page. It's a lot for one book, but it's totally on the mark. And it's a very fun read!

I love how this book brings acceptance and history into a read that's approachable and appropriate for many ages. It is a book that is even more relevant now!

Growing up and finding yourself Is not always for kids. High Five for Glen Burke shows how one boy comes to realize that it’s okay to be his own true self.

Incredibly important story about acceptance and allowing children to shine bright as their true selves. Like Silas, my son is baseball-obsessed and he appreciated how the author incorporated real-life major league facts into the fictional story. We'll be reading more of Phil Bildner's sports books!