About the B'Nai Bagels

A boy struggling to balance changing friendships and family expectations must decide who he wants to be on and off the baseball field in this middle grade coming-of-age novel from E.L. Konigsburg, the Newbery Medal–winning author of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Mark Setzer has a lot on his mind. He’s worried about his upcoming bar mitzvah, and he misses his best friend, who’s moved to the rich side of town and started hanging out with the obnoxious kid they used to make fun of. Mark doesn’t need the aggravation of his mother signing on to manage his Little League team, the B’nai B’rith Bagels. But if “Mother Bagel” complicates Mark’s life, she’s great for the team. Suddenly, they’re winning games and headed toward the championship. The problem is Mark has some information that could change everything, and he doesn’t know what to do with it. He’s a friend, a teammate, and the manager’s son—can he be all these and still be true to himself?

E.L. Konigsburg is the only author to have received the Newbery Medal and a Newbery Honor in the same year. In 1968, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler won the Newbery Medal and Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth was named a Newbery Honor Book. Almost thirty years later she won the Newbery Medal once again for The View from Saturday. Among her other acclaimed books are Silent to the Bone, The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place, and A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver.