The Field Beyond The Outfield

Teague, M. (1992). The field beyond the outfield. New York: Scholastic.

  Nothing says summer time like the game of baseball! The children’s picture book by Mark Teague is a great read for daydreamers, baseball lovers and those with a great imagination!  The main character, Ludlow Grebe, believes that there are monsters in his closet and that sharks swim outside every time it rains. This silliness doesn’t fly with his parents and they decided he needed “something real to think about” (pg. 5) so they sign him up for baseball.  He studies the game and learns how to play only to be told to” play back -far, far back – to where the weeds got scraggly and the other players looked small as ants.” (pg. 9). The illustration on this page shows you just how far out he was, and how lonely he must have felt by the use of white space left on the page from the framing of the picture.  He is playing so far back that he is whisked off to a parallel ballgame where the players are insects and the fans are monsters! He gets a chance to hit for the insect team with a great ending to the game. Ludlow realizes he must come back to his own game as night time was coming. When he goes to bed that night the monsters didn’t bother him at all, he was ready for the next day and what it held in store for him! The bright illustrations and double spread pages help catch little reader’s eyes.

This would be a great read for children in grades K-2. I love baseball and the cover of the book caught my attention with the baseball field and a few bugs playing baseball, I liked the drawings. This is a good book, but I’m not sure I would have a lesson to use it with in class. I have thought however that it would make a good “boy” book to pull in a reluctant reader with if they were into sports.

BIG question: Can you remember a time when you thought there where monsters under your bed, or in your closet. What did you do? How did it make you feel?