Barnstormers - Game 2

The year is 1899, and the Travelin' Nine are crisscrossing the good ol' U.S. of A., raising money to pay off the Payne family's big-league debt! As the team heads into the River City, Griffith is beginning to realize that there's more at risk than meets the eye, something beyond the need to raise money -- something involving the ball that could put his entire family in danger. Ruby is eager to help solve the mystery of the ball and plans on keeping her eyes and ears wide open and writing everything down. She knows the answer is out there. All she has to do is see the things that others don't. And figure out what those things mean. Then there's Graham, who usually only thinks about how to get more time on the baseball field. Even he's beginning to notice that there are strange and shady characters at just about every turn. Finally there's the Chancellor, one of the wealthiest and greediest businessmen in the entire world. And it looks like he's got his eye on the ball! Loren Long is the #1 New York Times bestselling illustrator of Madonna's Mr. Peabody's Apples and Watty Piper's The Little Engine That Could. His first picture book, Angela Johnson's I Dream of Trains, won the SCBWI's Golden Kite Award for picture book illustration. His version of Walt Whitman's "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer" was a Golden Kite Honor Book. A former vintage ballist, he lives in West Chester, Ohio. You can visit Loren at www.lorenlong.com. Phil Bildner is the author of the Texas Bluebonnet Award-winning Shoeless Joe & Black Betsy and its companion, The Shot Heard 'Round the World. In addition, he is the author of Twenty-One Elephants, which was an Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Platinum Award winner; and The Greatest Game Ever Played, as wel as the teen novels Playing the Field and Busted. A devoted softball player, he lives in Brooklyn, New York. You can visit Phil at www.philbildner.com. Josh Hamilton's films include Kicking and Screaming, The House of Yes, Alive, Diggers, Online, and Outsourced. His New York Stage work includes The Coast of Utopia, HurlyBurly, Proof, This is Our Youth, The Waverly Gallery, The Cider House Rules, As Bees in Honey Drown, and Suburbia.