THE ALL AMERICAN By Susie Finkbeiner
Michigan Notable Book Award–winning author Susie Finkbeiner takes readers back to the complex decade of the 1950s in the American Midwest. It was a time of baseball and apple pie—and also a time of questioning the status quo. Join Finkbeiner for a summer of chasing down dreams, seeking out the good, and discovering the place you truly belong in The All-American.
Sixteen-year-old Bertha Harding is not like other girls. She isn’t interested in getting married, having babies, and being a homemaker. She is far more interested in joining the neighborhood boys in a fast-paced game of baseball.
Her eleven-year-old sister, Flossie, on the other hand, wants nothing more than to fit in with the girls in her class. But, try as she might, she can’t seem to make a single friend other than those she finds in her books. It’s in those books that she finds hope for her own happily-ever-after.
But every life has a few strikes against it. When their father is accused of being part of the Communist party, life comes crashing down around them. It is clear they can no longer stay in their hometown, where rumors about the Harding family run rampant, so they escape to the small town of Bear Run, Michigan.
It’s there where Bertha grows even more determined to play for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, even trying out for the Workington Sweet Peas. And it’s in Bear Run where Flossie learns to be a friend and to find the good in everything.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Susie Finkbeiner is the CBA bestselling author of All Manner of Things, which was selected as a 2020 Michigan Notable Book, as well as Stories That Bind Us, The Nature of Small Birds, and other novels. Susie and her husband have three children and live in West Michigan. Learn more at www.susiefinkbeiner.com.
