Miracle Mud

Lena Blackburne
and the Secret Mud

That Changed Baseball

This post joins Nonfiction Monday

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Millbrook Press / Lerner Publishing

(pub. 1.1.2013) 32 pages 

A True Tale with A Cherry On Top

A uthor: David A. Kelly

     and Illustrator: Oliver Dominguez

C haracter: Lena Blackburne

O verview from the publisher: 

     "Lena Blackburne loved baseball. He watched it, he played it, he coached it. But he didn't love the ways players broke in new baseballs. Tired of soggy, blackened, stinky baseballs, he found a better way. Thanks to a well-timed fishing trip and a top-secret mud recipe, Lena Blackburne Baseball Rubbing Mud was born. For seventy five years, baseball teams have used Lena's magic mud to prepare baseballs before every game...Lena's mud went from a riverbank to the major leagues and all the way to the Hall of Fame." 

T antalizing taste: 

"Splooootch! He stepped into some dark brown

mud. It was soft and gooey. Lena’s boot stuck in

the mud. He slooooooooowly pulled it out.

Lena had an idea.

He reached down and scooped up some of the

dark brown mud. It looked smooth and creamy

like chocolate pudding. But it felt gritty.

Lena took the mud to the ballpark." 

                       

and something more: What a great concept for a children's book -- mud meets baseball! And I enjoyed reading the background and mystery behind the Miracle Mud in the Author's Note: "While baseball mud is used during every game from spring training to the World Series, the mud harvesting season starts in July. [The Lena Blackburne Baseball Rubbing Mud] crew take a boat out to their secret mud hole. They scoop up hundreds of pounds of mud and bring it back to shore. Then comes the super-secret part: they store the mucky brown mud in barrels over the winter Perhaps something special happens in the barrels We don't know. And they won't tell."