Summary Of Catch The Moon

TEACHER'S GUIDE FOR:

Catching the Moon

By Crystal Hubbard
Illustrations by Randy DuBurke

Synopsis
Catching the Moon: The Story of a Immature Girl'southward Baseball Dream is based on the babyhood of Marcenia "Toni Stone" Lyle Alberga (1921–1995), an African American girl who grew up to become the commencement woman to play for an all-male professional baseball team. Despite her parents' misgivings, young Marcenia cared just about playing baseball and was a regular on a squad of local boys. Then Gabby Street, the manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, came to town looking for recruits for a summer baseball campsite. Undeterred past the fact that the camp was merely for boys, and that her family unit could not afford proper baseball shoes (cleats), Marcenia fabricated up her mind to nourish. She did everything in her ability to change Street's mind. Finally her determination and pluck won him over. Marcenia was accepted into the camp and on her style to making her dream of a baseball career come up true.

Background
Marcenia Lyle was born in 1921 in St. Paul, Minnesota. She began her baseball career at the historic period of sixteen as a pitcher for the Twin Cities Colored Giants. Every bit her career took off, Lyle changed her name to Toni Stone, which she thought sounded more than professional. When she married, she took her husband'due south last name, Alberga. Marcenia "Toni Stone" Lyle Alberga faced two major obstacles in her baseball game career, Kickoff, she was African American at a fourth dimension when professional baseball teams were segregated. Second, she was a adult female at a fourth dimension when women rarely played professional baseball game. As the commencement female person actor in the Negro Leagues, she was oft harassed past the male players. Marcenia "Toni Rock" Lyle Alberga was inducted into the Women'due south Sports Hall of Fame in 1993. She is also honored in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, in the Women in Baseball exhibit and in the Negro Leagues section.

Didactics Tip
This book is an excellent choice to use in March when Women's History Month is observed. The book besides provides a timely connexion to the opening of major league baseball spring training.

Before Reading
Prereading Focus Questions
Before introducing the book, you may wish to have students discuss one or more of the post-obit questions every bit a motivation for reading.

What sport practise you similar to play the most? Why do y'all like it? What is the best role about playing that sport?
What is the departure between amateur sports and professional sports? Requite an example from your favorite sport or a sport you lot know something about.
Have you lot always tried to convince an adult that you lot should be allowed to practice something? What did y'all practice? How successful were you lot in persuading the developed?
What exercise y'all know nearly baseball game? Why practise you think the rules about playing this game have changed over time?

Exploring the Book
Write the title Catching the Moon: The Story of a Immature Girl's Baseball Dream on the chalkboard. Lead a discussion about what the showtime part of the title might mean and how this pregnant relates to the residue of the championship.

Have volunteers identify different parts of the volume including the title page, the copyright data, acknowledgments, author'due south sources, dedications, and afterword. Programme to share the afterword with students when they stop reading the book.

Setting a Purpose for Reading
Have students read to:

find out if Marcenia's baseball dream comes true.
understand the problems that Marcenia encounters in seeking her dream.

Vocabulary
Tell students that sports writers oft apply lively language when describing an event. The verbs they employ are particularly colorful. If possible, requite some examples from sports manufactures in your local newspaper. So write the following verbs on the board and explain that they all appear in the book. Call on volunteers to define each word; encourage students to human activity out a discussion if it makes the meaning clearer. Use a dictionary for words that students exercise non know. Follow upwardly with a word of how these verbs make the text in Catching the Moon livelier.

crouched	slammed	huddled	scooped
launched	snared	bolted	pumped
planted	mustered	punched	lingered

Subsequently Reading
Give-and-take Questions
After students have read the book, use these or similar questions to generate discussion, raise comprehension, and develop understanding of the content. Encourage students to refer back to the text and illustrations in the volume to support their responses.

Why did Marcenia love baseball game?
What was her dream? How did her passion for baseball game affect the other things in her life?
How did Marcenia's parents experience about her involvement in baseball? Why did they feel this way?
Why do you think her mother worried that Marcenia would be a maid?
How was Marcenia different from the other girls at school?
Who was Mr. Gabby Street? Why were the boys excited about his appearance in town?
Why did the boys come to Marcenia's defense when Mr. Street said he didn't take girls in his camp?
How did Marcenia show Mr. Street that she would be a good candidate for his camp? What adventure did she take?
How did Marcenia deport after her father said he could non afford to buy her cleats? What did her behavior tell you about Marcenia?
Why did the artist show the moon as a baseball in one of the illustrations?
Why exercise you think Mr. Street gave baseball shoes to Marcenia?
Why did her father allow Marcenia to keep the shoes even though he didn't like to accept charity?

Literature Circles
If you use literature circles during reading time, students might find the post-obit suggestions helpful in focusing on the different roles of the grouping members.

The Questioner might apply questions similar to those in the Discussion Question section of this guide.
The Passage Locator might find lines that help tell virtually the character of Marcenia.
The Illustrator might bear witness some imagined scenes of Marcenia at the baseball campsite.
The Connector might find books most other baseball players who bankrupt barriers.
The Summarizer might provide a brief summary of the group'southward reading and give-and-take points for each meeting.
The Investigator might find information about the history of women in baseball.

At that place are many resource books available with more data nearly organizing and implementing literature circles. Three such books you may wish to refer to are: *Getting Started with Literature Circles* past Katherine L. Schlick Noe and Nancy J. Johnson (Christopher-Gordon, 1999), *Literature Circles: Voice And Choice in Book Clubs and Reading Groups* by Harvey Daniels (Stenhouse, 2002), and *Literature Circles Resource Guide* by Bonnie Campbell Loma, Katherine L. Schlick Noe, and Nancy J. Johnson (Christopher-Gordon, 2000).

Reader'south Response
The following questions or like ones will aid students personalize their responses to the book. Suggest that students respond in reader's journals, in oral discussion, or in written form.

What words would y'all use to draw the character of Marcenia? How exercise yous think those characteristics helped her make her dream come true?
How does this book affect your thinking almost people who accept set ideas and are slow to take new ways of thinking?
Marcenia changed her name. Why did she practice that? Would y'all ever change your proper noun? Why? What new name might yous selection?
Although she didn't agree with her parents, Marcenia respected their say-so. Do yous call up she was correct? How might yous human activity when you and a family member have different points of view?
What would you tell someone who has not read Communicable the Moon almost this book? Why?
What could you learn from Marcenia? What communication do you think she would give you most pursuing a dream?
Crystal Hubbard, the writer, has this communication for immature readers: "You tin make of your life what you want if you're willing to piece of work hard and go on sight of the goals you fix for yourself. If paths to your goal are blocked or doors are slammed in your confront, forge your own path, await for new doors to open." What are some ways you tin can utilise this advice to your own life?

Other Writing Activities
You may wish to have students participate in one or more of the following writing activities. Set aside time for students to share and hash out their work.

Marcenia played baseball with the boys on the playground, but Mr. Street wasn't going to let her come to his all-boys baseball game camp. Practice you call up girls and boys should play sports together? Write an essay in which you try to persuade readers to hold with your signal of view.
Pretend yous are Marcenia. Write a thank you annotation to Mr. Street for giving you baseball shoes and letting you nourish his camp.
Take students go through the book and on split up paper, write captions for the illustrations.
Find out how Toni Rock is honored in her hometown of St. Paul, Minnesota. Write a written report to share with the course.

ELL Teaching Strategies
These strategies might be helpful to utilize with students who are English linguistic communication learners or who are learning to speak English as a 2d language.

Write the following baseball terms from the story on the chalkboard. Invite baseball fans in the grade to act out and explicate each term. | got a triple | doubled back | tagged out | | deep flyball | stole domicile | slid into abode |
Read aloud a sentence from the book and have students read information technology aloud after you, pointing to each give-and-take as they speak.
Make an audiotape of the volume and invite students to mind to information technology as they follow along with the text.

Interdisciplinary Activities
Use some of these activities to help students integrate their reading experiences with other curriculum areas.

Language Arts
Explain that a simile is a effigy of speech communication in which 2 dissimilar things are compared, ordinarily in a phrase that begins with like or every bit. Give as examples these similes from the volume. Then claiming students to write their own similes about Marcenia.

Marcenia'southward teeth gleamed like the noonday dominicus. Information technology [the moon] was so round and bright, similar a brand new baseball.

Science
This story lends itself to a mini-lesson on the five senses. Write the names of the senses—sight, sound, sense of taste, odor, and touch on—on the chalkboard. Give the examples below from the book. So encourage students to detect other examples of how the senses are described or suggested in the volume.

Sight: Marcenia kept her eyes on each pitch.
Sound: The baseball slams into Marcenia's glove.
Sense of taste: She loved the powdery sense of taste of dust clouds.
Odor: The puff of lather might olfactory property of soap when Marcenia gets her pilus washed.
Impact: The lord's day heated her hair.

Art
Students might bask designing baseball game cards to award Marcenia "Toni Rock" Lyle Alberga. Have students use the information in the afterword and the Net to find facts and statistics to add to their cards.

Sports

Interested students might contact the National Baseball game Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, for more than information nearly Toni Stone.
Explain to students that a 1972 police force, often chosen Title 9, provided equal opportunities for female athletes, especially in high schools and colleges. Accept students work with partners to observe out how the constabulary has impacted women's sports.

About the Writer
Crystal Hubbard began her publishing career in journalism. As a copy editor in the sports department of the Boston Herald, her "involvement in sports exploded," and she became determined to share the stories of African American sports heroes with children. Catching the Moon: The Story of a Young Girl's Baseball Dream was her beginning picture book. Both it and another of Hubbard's books, The Terminal Black King of the Kentucky Derby, accept received numerous honors. Says Hubbard, "I think sports are important in terms of helping develop skills in working well with others and in edifice self-esteem." As a young girl, Hubbard met Arthur Ashe, the tennis thespian. Not surprisingly, her virtually recent book is a biography of the tennis bully called Game, Set, Match, Champion Arthur Ashe. Following her ain girlhood dream, Hubbard now writes fulltime. She lives with her husband and their iv children in Missouri.

About the Illustrator
Randy DuBurke has been an illustrator for more than twenty years, and his work includes volume covers, comics, and editorial illustration as well as children's books. He received the Coretta Scott King John Steptoe Award for New Talent in Analogy for his debut moving-picture show book, The Moon Ring. Other books have included the graphic biography Malcolm X and Lee & Depression'due south graphic novel Yummy: The Final Days of a Southside Shorty. DuBurke's work has too appeared in The New York Times and Mad magazine. He lives with his wife and their two sons in Switzerland.

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About This Title

Involvement Level:

Grades i - v

Reading Level:

Grades three - four

Themes

Nonfiction, Sports, Identity/Self Esteem/Confidence, Friendship, Dreams & Aspirations, Discrimination, Breaking Gender Barriers, African/African American Interest, Biography/Memoir, Poverty, Sports History, Childhood Experiences and Memories, Optimism/Enthusiasm, Overcoming Obstacles, Persistence/Grit, Women's History

Collections

African American English Drove Grades three-6, Fluent Dual Language , Fluent English, Biography and Memoir Grades 3-6, Appendix B Diverse Collection Grades three-6, Nonfiction Grades 3-vi, Bestsellers and Favorites Collection, Athletes and Sports, Black History Collection Grades 3-half dozen, High-Low Books for Preteens (Grades iv-6), Women's History Collection, Baseball game & Softball Collection, Persistence and Determination Collection, Pedro Noguera Diverse Collection Grades 3-5, Storyline Online Collection , Social Activism Collection Grades PreK-2, Black History Month Bestselling Books Collection, Women'south Text Set Collection Grades PreK-viii, Women'southward Text Set up Collection PreK-2, African American Collection English language 6PK, EmbraceRace Webinar: Books That Inspire Racial Justice & Advancement for All Children, English Guided Reading Level R, Social and Emotional Learning Drove, Grit & Perseverance Collection, Social Activism Drove

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