One-Handed Catch (review)

Just a moment's carelessness when helping in his father's meat market sends Norm Schmidt off to the hospital lapsing into shock with a meat grinder still attached to his left hand ("Whatever you do, don't sell that chopped meat I made. . . . You gotta do a new batch"). That matter-of-fact-attitude and wry, slightly grim sense of humor will carry him through the coming sixth-grade school year as he relearns how to carry out everyday tasks when he's short one hand. Tying shoelaces, buttoning a shirt, and stocking canned goods are challenging enough, but Norm's determined that he'll also make the baseball team—no mean feat because, as his best friend, Leon, bluntly points out, he was never all that good a player to begin with. Still, Leon's encouragement, Mom's tough love, and his own motivation and resourcefulness get him to his goal, and he picks up a new buddy with a couple of social problems of his own along the way. Auch loosely bases Norm's story, set in the late 1940s, on the experiences of her husband, who also lost a hand in an accident. This no doubt goes a long way toward accounting for the authenticity of detail as Norm figures his way past physical problems, and the lack of self-pity (tearful frustration at times, but never self-pity) that marks his character. There's very little heart-wrenching here, but plenty of intentional and unintentional joking among the guys whose curiosity over the missing hand is strong but whose attention span even for disaster is remarkably, and credibly, short. Kids will be fascinated with just how Norm learns to cope, and Norm won't mind a bit if they watch.