Characters: Emma, Jamal, Nikki, Greg
Setting: Spring
Plot: Emma loves baseball, but she faces a problem that she and her best friend both want to be the shortstop
Perspective: First person viewpoint
Genre: Realistic Fiction
The story “There’s Nothing Like Baseball” written by Angela Johnson talks about a girl named Emma who was born in a baseball family. Her mom and brother both play baseball. Emma extremely likes baseball, she thinks about baseball when she wakes up, when she has breakfast, she can nearly smell the freshly cut grass in the fields. But she faces a problem, she and her friend Jamal both wants to be the shortstop. Finally, the coach tells them that neither of them can be the shortstop, but Emma doesn’t feel sad because she keeps the friendship with her friend.
Friendship is more important than baseball. If you don’t keep your friendship steady, you will feel unhappy and you won’t play well in the games. You will also feel lonely without any friends. In the story, Emma is unhappy because she and her friend Jamal both wants to be the shortstop in her team. In her dream, her friend doesn’t get the shortstop and this makes Emma frustrated. Emma is a person that always thinks about friendship is more important. Although she likes baseball very much, she is a very generous person and wants to let her friend get the position. If you are a selfish person and you get what you want right now, but after all, no one will like you and make friends with you. So, if you want to be a joyful person, you must put friendship at your first place.
The belief of sports is you should try to be the best, but the most important is everybody gets to play. If you want to play in a game. You should have a good attitude and you should practice more. Even if you fail, you should stand up and don’t give up. In the story, Emma’s team is sponsored by a couple called Rex and Sophie. They clap for everybody no matter what they do as long as the team members try their best. They told Emma the belief of sports. Even though Emma can’t play as well as her mother and brother, she tries her best to play. In sports teams, we claim that everybody should get involved playing and enjoy the process of teamwork. When you are playing, you should always try your best so you can get pleasure of involving in the sports with others.
We learn three kinds of writing skills in this story. First, beautiful sentences which use symbols and vivid description to make it long. Second, indirect description which use five sense to show the emotion of the character. Third, corresponding which use the same things at the beginning and at the end to enhance the difference and change of the character’s thinking. In the story, the writer tells us the season indirectly through the beautiful sentence “Baseball was coming when the ice dripped form the roof.” And “Baseball was coming when the tulips in the park poked through the ground.” The writer uses the beautiful sentences in order to let the readers think and guess if a picture comes into their mind. The main character in this story extremely liked baseball but we never see any words like ‘love or like’ in the story. On the other hand, the writer used the five senses to show the passion of baseball. Five senses mean: taste, smell, touch, hearing, and sight. When the writer talks about the problem the main character faces, the same grass and sound of bats shows different image to use which show the change of the main character. We can feel the complicated thought of the main character even there is not a word “sad” in the story. It is appealing that you read the beautiful sentence which show the image picture. When you read the five senses you indirectly understand the picture and the feeling as if you stand in front of the environment. Corresponding makes the story vivid and impress the reader from the beginning to the end.
In conclusion, the story tells us a girl who takes the friendship the first, even though she loves baseball. She lives in a family of baseball which shows great honor, but she also lives in a family full of love. First, in our life when you face the problem you and your friend want the same thing, because take turns sometimes still can’t solve the problem. The best choice for us is to choose give it to our friends to gain the happiness from your inner heart. Second, it is better to try to best than just win in the sports game because as long as you are immersed in it, you can feel it is worthy. Third, we should use different writing skills to make the sentence beautiful and make the story impressive.
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