Baseball Card Adventures Books In Order

Publication Order of Baseball Card Adventures Books

“Baseball Card Adventures” is a series of children’s fiction novels by Dan Gutman the American author. Gutman was born in 1955 New York City, but spent most of his childhood in Newark New Jersey, where his family moved to soon after he was born. He went to Vailsburg High School and Rutgers University from where he got his bachelors in psychology, before moving back to New York to try his hand at writing. He spent several years as a columnist and editor of Stag Magazine, where he got addicted to video games and even founded a video game magazine. It took him a while to realize that writing for children was his strong suit. After the 1996 publishing of “The Kid who Ran For President” that became a runaway success, Gutman has never looked back penning more than 80 titles since. “Honus & Me” the first novel of the “Baseball Card Adventures” was first published in 1997 followed by several more titles at a pace of about a book a year since then.

Gutman is best known for the spin-off the “My Weird School” series of novels that has more than 70 titles which is illustrated by Jim Paillot. He is also the author of the “Million Dollar” series, the “Genius Files” series, “My Weirder School”, “Funny Boy series”, and “My Weird School Daze”. He also wrote the story of Judson Moon, a boy that won the US presidency aged only twelve which has been compared to Donald Trump’s 2016 win. He also has several standalone titles to his name including a novel about extraterrestrials that came to Earth to learn how to play baseball in “They Came from Center Field”, and a historical novel featuring the Wright Brothers – “A Race for the Sky” among others. Dan’s “Baseball Card Adventure” series is about Joe Stoshack a boy that achieves the ultimate that every boy wants. He goes back in time and gets to play with baseball legends. The first novel in the series “Honus & Me” has him finding one of the most sought after baseball cards in history that allows him to travel back in time. Further novels feature baseball greats such as Willie Mays, Ted Williams, Roberto Clemente, Ray Chapman, Jim Thorpe, Satchel Paige, and Abner Doubleday among others. The original novel in “Honus & Me” was adapted into a TV movie titled “Winning Season” that featured Kristin Davis and Mathew Modine as leads.

The ” A Baseball Card Adventures” is an ongoing series of novels about Joe Stoshack, a poor boy who stumbles upon a baseball card that makes time travel possible. He now gets the ability to travel back in time every time he touches an old card. He usually gets transported to the year the card was made and finds himself alongside the baseball legend on the card. It is not long before he realizes that his power is not restricted to old cards but also works on ancient photographs. He has the power to change history but needs to use it wisely, which proves harder than he thought he would. The novels come with white and black photos given the time period in which they are set. For instance, “Jackie & Me” shows a real picture of Jackie Robinson stealing second base. Joseph Stoshack had always been a lover and collector of baseball cards, until he slept with one and suddenly disappeared to find himself back in time. He is now learning from the stories and tactics of the best of MLB professionals from the 30s, 50s, and 70s. However, it is not all rainbows and roses as his life is full of thrills and dangers such as a kidnapping in one book and a near death experience in another. In his normal life outside time travel, he lives in Louisville Kentucky and is friends with a baseball shop owner named Flip Valentinetti. Flip and his parents are among the people that know that Stoshack can go back in time. The novels of the “A Baseball Card Adventure” series are dramatic yet touching novels that allow the reader to experience life as a professional baseball player.

“Honus & Me” is the first novel of the “A Baseball Card Adventure” series of novels by Dan Gutman. Joseph Stoshack otherwise known as Joe is a poor boy from Louisville in Kentucky. He has always been obsessed with baseball cards and tried to collect them though it was very hard given that his family had practically no money to allow him such pursuits. He knows nearly everything about baseball but he is not a very good player, with striking out the only thing that he can do well. Everything changes when Amanda Young an elderly neighbor asks for his help in cleaning out the attic in her house in exchange for some money to buy his baseball cards. It is while he is cleaning the attic that he stumbles upon a 1909 Honus Wagner baseball card, one of the most valuable and sought after cards. Before he can tell anyone about his find, Honus Wagner magically appears in his house to take him on an adventure in the game. Using his new found ability he travels back in time to the time of Honus Wagner for the 1909 World series, one of the biggest games of the century.

“Jackie & Me” the second novel of the “A Baseball Card Adventur”e series opens to Stoshack struggling to find information to write his school assignment. His teacher told him to write about an athletic African American and he cannot find much useful information from the textbooks or the library. Luckily for him, he can travel back in time to meet Jackie Robinson. But when he gets to Jackie Robinson’s time, he realizes that he had also become African American. He experiences how difficult life was for an African American man in the years of racial segregation and intolerance. He asks Jackie questions and then travels back to the present to write his essay from the answers he jotted down in his journal. But not everyone was terrible to him as Pee Wee Reese the team captain shows uncharacteristic kindness and respect to Jackie. Joe writes his report and gets an A from a very impressed teacher. It is an excellent novel about life as an African American sportsman in the 40s that even with its glamour and fame could be very frustrating for people of color.