Striking Out

by Will Weaver

 

 

Discussion Guides and Activity Ideas
ABOUT THE BOOK:

Up until now, Billy Baggs' life has been full of nevers. Never been to a movie. Never played baseball with a real team. Never got over feeling guilty for the loss of his brother, which forever shattered his Minnesota farm family. Urged on by the town's baseball coach, Billy discovers he has talent–both on the field of his family's farm and on the baseball field. This novel has hard-hitting realism and strong writing. The prologue, focused on a wrenching farm accident, has been used in high school speech contests. Striking Out includes a couple of unfinished plot lines that Weaver finishes in two sequels. Among many awards, this novel was chosen as a 1993 American Bookseller Pick of the Lists and a 1994 American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults. "[C]omplex characters grow and change in profoundly real ways."—Kirkus Reviews.

From the author’s website, www.willweaverbooks.com



DISCUSSION STARTERS:

  • Striking Out is set on a Minnesota Farm in 1970. Talk about life on a family farm, farm machinery, kids working on farms, etc.

  • Is Billy Baggs a likeable character?  What about his mother, Mavis, and his father, Abner?

  • Billy's deceased brother Robert keeps coming up throughout the book.  Why?  What would it be like to have a tragedy occur in your family?

  • How does Billy feel about the family farm?  Why?

  • An author can make a place or a thing a "character" in a book even though they aren't people.  Do you think Will Weaver did this?  If he did what are the non-people characters in the book?

  • Why did Billy and King Kenwood have such problems with each other?

  • What do you think about the Dale Schwartz character? What does the whole Dale/Heather/ Gina/Bill situation bring to the story?

  • What does baseball bring to this book?  Why is baseball so important to Billy?

  • Coach Ozzie Anderson does a lot of things for Billy.  Is it just because Billy is good at baseball?

  • Did the author write a believable book?  Did it make you want to keep reading?  Will you read the other 2 books in the Billy Baggs series, Farm Team and Hard Ball?

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES:

Check out our Events Calendar at www.scott.lib.mn.us/OTSP.html for times and locations of On The Same Page events.

MEET THE AUTHOR! Will Weaver will be at the Prior Lake Library the evening of Thursday, January 24 to discuss his book Sweet Land and show clips of the movie. Check the OTSP website for more information as the date approaches…

www.willweaverbooks.com  Will Weaver’s website includes a description of his books, a short biography, and appearance schedule.

 

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Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie by David Lubar. While navigating his first year of high school and awaiting the birth of his new baby brother, Scott loses old friends and gains some unlikely new ones as he hones his skills as a writer.

Notes from the Midnight Driver by Jordan Sonnenblick. After being assigned to perform community service at a nursing home, sixteen-year-old Alex befriends a cantankerous old man who has some lessons to impart about jazz guitar playing, love, and forgiveness.

Claws by Will Weaver. Jed and Laura, two popular Minnesota high school students, find their seemingly perfect lives suddenly in chaos when they discover that each has a parent who is having an affair with the other.