Calico Joe by John Grisham

          I’m not a big John Grisham fan. I’m even less of a baseball fan. So it was with great trepidation that I started this book.

          The first chapter sucks. It was horrible. I hated it. After reading one chapter I didn’t pick the book back up for 2 days.

          But I have that pesky three chapter rule, and the chapters really are pretty short. So I sighed deeply and started chapter two.

          By the end of chapter two, I was totally sucked in. By the end of chapter three, I believed this would have been a best seller even if Grisham wasn’t the author.

          This is the story of a young boy’s love of baseball and his hero worship of a remarkable player. The boy’s father is a pitcher for the Mets and a generally lousy human being. The boy’s hero is a young man from Calico Rock, Arkansas who had a record shattering, and meteoric rise to stardom with the Chicago Cubs.

          The climactic meeting between those two men, while that young boy watches from the stands, echoes through the boy’s life long into adulthood.

          This book reaffirms why Grisham is such a great writer. He took me from my predisposed attitude of board and disgusted, and propelled me, apparently effortlessly, into a place where I was unable to put the book down till I had completed it. Granted, it’s a pretty short book, but I read the rest of the book in one day. I actually insisted my husband read this one – he’s not a fan of Grisham’s baseball books – but I know he’ll like this one!