Lenny and the Mikes are back! After solving a baseball-related crime in Strike Three, You’re Dead, Lenny Norbeck and his friends Mike and Other Mike find themselves once again knee-deep in mystery. This time around, however, their friendship may suffer from the solving.
Lenny was never very good at baseball, and Mike had to give up a career as a pitcher when he hurt his arm, but both of them still love the game. Other Mike is indifferent, but he tries to keep up for the sake of his friends. Lenny is thrilled when Mike earns a spot as a catcher on the Schwenkfelder Middle School team, yet he finds himself a little jealous, too. When the starting catcher and school bully, Davis Gannett, is thrown off the team for stealing a cell phone, Mike gets the chance to have his prime position.
Everything is perfect—especially after Lenny gets to call the games from the announcer’s booth—until Other Mike makes friends with Davis. Other Mike insists that Davis is innocent of the crime and convinces Lenny to take the case. But Lenny is troubled. Did Mike frame Davis? Should he confront Mike about it? What will that do to their friendship? And on top of all that, star pitcher Hunter Ashwell suddenly can’t throw a strike. Has someone stolen the catcher’s signs? Is it all tied together?
Author Josh Berk has come through for fans of Lenny and the Mikes with another hilarious look at life in middle school. Berk’s first-person prose keeps readers turning pages to find out what Lenny will do next. It’s not necessary to have read the first book to enjoy this one, but you will want to as soon as you have finished Say It Ain’t So.
Jennifer Bruer Kitchel is the librarian for a Pre-K through eighth level Catholic school.
