{"id":6450,"date":"2026-05-29T09:59:01","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T09:59:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=6450"},"modified":"2026-05-29T09:59:01","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T09:59:01","slug":"pop-flies-robo-pets-and-other-disasters-by-suzanne-kamata","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=6450","title":{"rendered":"Pop Flies, Robo-Pets, and Other Disasters by Suzanne Kamata"},"content":{"rendered":"

A thoughtful middle-grade baseball novel with more on its mind than winning<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Suzanne Kamata\u2019s Pop Flies, Robo-Pets, and Other Disasters<\/em> opens with a setup that might sound familiar. Satoshi Matsumoto has returned to Japan after three years in Atlanta, where he was the star of his middle-school baseball team. He comes back with a good swing, strong English, and the assumption that baseball will still make sense. It doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

That gap between what Satoshi expects and what actually greets him gives the book its shape. Back in Japan, he isn\u2019t exactly an outsider, but he\u2019s not fully an insider anymore either. He knows the language but not always the social code. He knows the game but not the structure wrapped around it. Kamata is strongest when she lets that in-between feeling do the work. Satoshi is marked almost immediately by his English, his habits, and the fact that he\u2019s come back with the wrong instincts for how to move through school and team life. Even the things he\u2019s good at can make him stick out in the wrong way.<\/p>\n

Mr. Tanaka, Satoshi\u2019s English teacher, is one of the book\u2019s more believable antagonists because he\u2019s not especially dramatic. He\u2019s petty, insecure, and backed by the quiet authority of the classroom. He singles Satoshi out, embarrasses him over small things, and seems especially irritated by the fact that this kid has a kind of fluency he can\u2019t entirely control. Kamata gets something right here about schools and teams and other childhood institutions: they often care less about fairness than about whether a kid knows how to fit the shape that\u2019s already been made for him.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

The baseball team, which ought to be a refuge, doesn\u2019t offer much relief. Kamata understands that sports aren\u2019t just sports, especially for kids. They\u2019re also hierarchy, ritual, and social pressure. Satoshi can play. He can hit, bunt, learn the signs, and still not quite belong. The team wants skill, sure, but it also wants obedience, patience, and the right kind of attitude. Satoshi isn\u2019t always good at giving it that.<\/p>\n

Satoshi is a standout middle grade protagonist. He\u2019s not a saint, and the book is better for it. He\u2019s proud, thin-skinned, and desperate for the kind of big moment that might fix everything at once. He wants to prove himself quickly instead of earning trust slowly. He wants the story to break his way. Kamata is smart to let him be messy in such a deeply believable way. His mistakes don\u2019t just come from bad luck or unfair treatment. They also come from pride, homesickness, and the very kid-sized belief that one shining moment can solve problems that are actually much bigger than that.<\/p>\n

Shintaro, his rival, is less interesting at first, mostly because he enters the book in fairly familiar bully mode. But Kamata does eventually give him more shape. His father\u2019s pressure hangs over him. His struggles in school threaten his place. His attachment to baseball is ugly sometimes, but it\u2019s also real. That doesn\u2019t excuse the cruelty, but it does keep him from feeling completely flat.<\/p>\n

The book\u2019s emotional center is Satoshi\u2019s grandfather, Oji-chan. That relationship gives the story real depth and keeps it from being just<\/em> a sports book about grit and teamwork. Oji-chan is a former baseball figure, a local legacy, and a man whose memory is beginning to fray. His confusion changes the rhythm of the household and quietly reshapes Satoshi\u2019s life. Kamata handles that well. She doesn\u2019t turn it into a lesson so much as a lived condition of the family\u2019s days.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s especially good on the tangle of feelings that come with care. Satoshi loves his grandfather. He\u2019s also embarrassed by him, frustrated by him, protective of him, and burdened in ways he doesn\u2019t always know how to admit. He wants to be at practice. He wants his own life. He wants, like any kid, to be selfish sometimes without feeling terrible about it. The book doesn\u2019t force that tension into something neat, and it\u2019s better for that.<\/p>\n

The prose can be a little over-explanatory in places. Kamata sometimes tells you what a scene means when the scene was already doing the job. But for a middle-grade novel, it doesn\u2019t land as a fatal flaw so much as a slight lack of trust in material that\u2019s often already strong. Younger readers are likely to stay with it just fine, and the best parts of the book have real emotional clarity without getting sticky about it.<\/p>\n

Pop Flies<\/em> has more going on than its packaging might suggest. Kamata understands shame, belonging, and the way kids can make a mess of things not because they\u2019re bad, but because they want so badly to be seen in the right way. Satoshi wants to stand out in a world that keeps demanding he fall in line. He wants home to feel like home again. He wants baseball to mean what it used to mean. The book is at its best when it admits that those wants are real, painful, and not always enough.<\/p>\n

Pop Flies<\/em> is not trying to be perfect or profound. It\u2019s trying to tell the truth about a kid caught between countries, expectations, and family need. And it does just that.<\/p>\n

The post Pop Flies, Robo-Pets, and Other Disasters by Suzanne Kamata<\/a> appeared first on Independent Book Review<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A thoughtful middle-grade baseball novel with more on its mind than winning Suzanne Kamata\u2019s Pop Flies, Robo-Pets, and Other Disasters opens with a setup that might sound familiar. Satoshi Matsumoto has returned to Japan after three years in Atlanta, where he was the star of his middle-school baseball team. He comes back with a good […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bookreviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6450"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6450\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}