Baseball-obsessed sixth-grader Silas Wade finds inspiration for his own coming out in Glenn Burke, the real-life 1970s baseball player who was the first openly gay player in the major leagues (and the co-inventor of the high five).
Silas, who is generally popular and liked at school (unlike many queer protagonists, who are loners), begins his coming-out process with a class presentation about Burke, including information about the homophobia he faced, his struggles with addiction, and his death from complications of AIDS. Silas then finds the courage to tell his best friend Zoey that he, too, is gay. And online videos inspire him to come out to his Coach Webb, who is understanding.
But coming out to his teammates is harder, especially after one of them uses the term “gay” as an insult. Coach Webb, who has already spoken out against racially charged taunts during games, tells the team that there will be no LGBTQ taunts, either, or ones that belittle women, immigrants, Muslims, or other groups. Upon hearing this, one of the other coaches quits, taking his son with him. The team thinks it was Silas’s fault that Webb found out about the taunt, so Silas tries to deflect this by saying that Zoey is his girlfriend.
This leads, unsurprisingly, to both Zoey and his team rejecting him, and Silas must then figure out whether to continue the lie or to take inspiration from how his hero Burke lived his truth.
While there are some clear lessons woven into the story, it is also full of baseball action, making for a read that is both lively and thoughtful.
Silas is White; Zoey reads as Latina. Teammates and coaches have a variety of racial/ethnic identities.
