Bacigalupi, P. (2013). Zombie baseball beatdown. New York, NY: Little Brown and Company.
Summary: Rabi, Joe and Miguel are good friends and they are also on their local baseball team together. They practice on a field next to the meat-packing plant and lately something fishy is going on. Cows and humans alike are turning into zombies. Rabi and his friends investigate the mystery inside the factory to save the town and possibly the world.
Review: Bacigalupi tackles a lot more than just baseball and zombies in this book. He addresses food justice issues as well as ICE and the plight of being an undocumented immigrant. Through an adventure about zombies, readers are learning much more about the injustices in the world. The writing is clear and animated and will entice any middle schooler, especially boys.
Diversity: This novel isn't a story about diversity but it gives us diverse characters in an action-adventure. Rabi is half South Asian and half-White with a name no one can pronounce. His best friend Miguel is an undocumented boy from Mexico whose family has been deported. Joe is their white friend with dysfunctional and absentee parents. While the friends are fighting zombies, their identities contribute to their everyday existence and struggle and Bacigalupi normalizes and validates these experiences for readers, yet he does so in a way that doesn't tokenize any of the experiences.
Diversity: This novel isn't a story about diversity but it gives us diverse characters in an action-adventure. Rabi is half South Asian and half-White with a name no one can pronounce. His best friend Miguel is an undocumented boy from Mexico whose family has been deported. Joe is their white friend with dysfunctional and absentee parents. While the friends are fighting zombies, their identities contribute to their everyday existence and struggle and Bacigalupi normalizes and validates these experiences for readers, yet he does so in a way that doesn't tokenize any of the experiences.
Suggestions for Teachers: Use this as a core text in an ELA classroom or or teach excerpts of it with informational texts on food justice or immigration readings.
Reading Level:
- Quantitative: Lexile 1090L, ATOS Book Level 7.4, Flesh-Kincaid 7.3. Readability Grade Level 8.0, 6.2 RMM
- Qualitative: This text is slightly complex. The narration is chronological. Language is largely contemporary and explicit and thus moderately complex. Bacigalupi uses a lot of dialogue. The text has one level of meaning. Students who have some knowledge of factory farming and the plight of undocumented immigrants will more easily comprehend the text although this text could function as a great introduction to both of those issues.
Content Areas: English, Contemporary Issues
Common Core State Standards:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.7.1
Cite several pieces of textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.7.2
Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text; provide an objective summary of the text.
Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text; provide an objective summary of the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.7.3
Analyze how particular elements of a story or drama interact (e.g., how setting shapes the characters or plot).
Analyze how particular elements of a story or drama interact (e.g., how setting shapes the characters or plot).
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.7.4
Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of rhymes and other repetitions of sounds (e.g., alliteration) on a specific verse or stanza of a poem or section of a story or drama.
Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of rhymes and other repetitions of sounds (e.g., alliteration) on a specific verse or stanza of a poem or section of a story or drama.
Subjects/Themes: undocumented immigrants, ICE, factory farming, meat-packing industry, US-Mexico immigration
Awards: N/A
Awards: N/A
Series Information: N/A
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