Kristy and the Walking Disaster

Ann M. Martin's Kristy and the Walking Disaster is a sporty friendship story for 9 year olds about a club president who decides to coach a softball team of kids nobody else would pick.

What happens

Kristy Thomas is thirteen and runs the Baby-sitters Club with her friends. She wears a visor to meetings so everyone knows she means business. She also LOVES sport.

One Saturday she's minding her little brother David Michael and a gang of neighbourhood kids who are trying to play softball. Hannie never hits the ball. Max drops every catch. David Michael trips over his own feet, the bat and even the ball.

None of them will go near Little League, because who'd want them? A boy called Bart runs his own team, but he can't take six more (he's also very, very cute, which doesn't help Kristy concentrate). So she starts a team of her own, open to any child who wants to play.

Then there's Jackie Rodowsky. He's seven, he has flaming red hair and things just happen around him. Kristy sits for him on the day the boys throw a birthday party for their dog. Within minutes there's pink lemonade dripping down the kitchen cupboards. His first go at pitching ends up in the neighbours' gutter (where four other balls are already waiting).

But the worse Jackie plays, the harder he tries. Told he'll never make Little League, he announces he'll be the best player in the universe. Then he trips over his shoelace.

Kristy tells it all herself and she's super chatty. She works out the odds of Bart being a jerk or a snob. Soon twenty kids have signed up, the youngest just two and a half. Who knew a team list could be this funny?

Something to know before you start. This is book twenty, and the opening pages catch up on the whole club, which gives away how several earlier books turn out. If that matters, begin with Kristy's Great Idea.

A couple of those quick introductions show their age too. Claudia is summed up by her looks and her Japanese-American family, and a deaf boy on the team is described as someone who "can't hear or speak". It's very American throughout.

What to read next

For another girl who'd rather be on a pitch than anywhere else, try Jaz Santos vs the World. Jaz is in Year 6 and plays left striker for the Bramrock Stars, though most of the girls in her class don't like football at all. And she chats away to you just as Kristy does.