Seventh-grade twins Sammy and Matty Putterman have done everything together. Every holiday, first day of school, every time they cheer for the Houston Astros, and every win and loss of their own youth baseball team. When Matty suddenly quits baseball, Sammy doesn’t understand what’s going on with him, and mourns the loss of their formerly inseparable bond.
Then Hurrican Harvey hits their hometown of Houston, and they’re forced to move in with their cousin Becky’s family. Becky, a year older, is tired of being the young person who’s often overlooked in their baseball-loving extended family. She hopes her plans for launching a popular cats-and-fashion site on social media, plus her upcoming bat mitzvah, will put a spotlight on her and garner her some attention from her workaholic parents.
Matty’s reluctance to play baseball stems from his (reciprocated) crush on another boy on his team. He’s never seen gay baseball players, and has no conception of how those two identities can coexist.
The perspective shifts among the three young people, as each must face her or his own changes and challenges and discover their own strengths even as they learn to support each other as a family. Matty’s coming out is only one aspect of this, which somehow makes it feel more normalized as a possible part of some tween’s coming of age. All of the other characters are also fully supportive of Matty when they do learn he is gay; Sammy (who is cued as straight) even says that Matty’s first kiss with his crush is “exactly how I want my first kiss to be someday.” Love is love indeed.
I also appreciate the portrayal of a family whose Jewishness is neither a token mention of Hanukkah nor an Orthodox extreme. Becky works on writing the d’var Torah (“word of Torah,” or a lesson stemming from a Torah portion) for her bat mitzvah; the extended family has long had Shabbat dinners together, and their grandmother calls everyone “doll.” (OK, maybe there’s nothing particularly Jewish about the last, but my own Jewish grandmother called everyone “doll,” too, so….) As Matty explains at one point, “It’s not like we’re super religious or anything, but in my Jewish family, it’s just what you do, okay?” At one point, though, the idea of seeking forgiveness on Yom Kippur plays an important part; Jewish values are clearly at play even in this not-super-observant family.
My only criticism is the title, which comes from a term from rap/hip hop culture. This seems an odd choice, given that there’s only one Black character in the book: Mack, the head of security at the Astros ballpark, who says the titular line every time he sees the family. Mack also has photos of groundbreaking Black ballplayers on his office walls, and at one point, offers Matty some words of wisdom that help him connect their challenges—and successes—with those of groundbreaking Jewish players, and Matty’s own challenge to be a gay one. It’s an important scene, but it’s the only significant one that Mack gets.
Nevertheless, there’s a lot to like in this book, from the thoughtful, interwoven, coming-of-age stories to the exploration of an extended family under pressure—and their learning how to remain a family despite their individual and collective challenges.
