Players in Pigtails
Like the author, Shana Corey, I fell in love with the AAGPBL after watching the movie A League of Their Own. I was delighted to find this book and share that same intriguing story with my students! Now, I’m taking it down from the top shelf and dusting it off to share with you!
If you love this book as much as I do, grab this resource on TPT for two days of reading comprehension instruction.
The book centers on the fictional character, Katie Casey, who is baseball mad. If you know the song Take Me Out to Ballgame, you might recognize that as a riff of the first line. The song was originally written in 1908, and of course, girls did not play professional baseball at that time. Shana Corey took that song, married it to the true history of the All-American Girls’ Professional Baseball League, and created a simple but effective story. This book makes a terrific interactive read aloud because there is so much to talk about!
Probably my favorite part of the book is the language. During your interactive read aloud, you will find plenty of opportunities to discuss alliteration, juxtaposition, idioms, and really strong descriptive language. Take a look at this quote from the book.
She preferred sliding to sewing, batting to baking, and home runs to homecoming.
quote from Players in Pigtails
In this sentence, Corey uses alliteration with the repeated sounds of the letters s, b and h. She juxtaposes two ideas (like sliding and sewing) to help students learn about the main character. I am in awe of her ability to pack a lot into a fairly short sentence! As you read the book, you will find many more examples that you will want to analyze with your readers and writers.
This book is also really great for teaching character analysis to 2nd and 3rd graders. Both the illustrations and the text give us a strong idea of who Katie is. During your interactive read aloud, I recommend showing the illustrations under your document camera so that students can easily see them. When I read this, I always give students a chance to use the magic paper to highlight aspects of the illustrations that help us understand Katie’s character. For example, on page 7, the illustrator shows us that Katie’s room is full of books about chemistry, signed photographs of baseball players and high top sneakers. The text gives us even more clues about Katie’s character, and again, Corey uses alliteration to draw attention to these important characteristics.
Her clothing was crumpled. Her knitting was knotted. Her dancing was a disaster.
quote from Players in Pigtails
The book is also a terrific springboard for discussion about gender stereotypes. The text frequently asks, “What good is baseball to a girl?”, and at one point in the book, the baseball players are sent to charm school to become more ladylike (this is a true historical fact)! Be sure to read the Author’s Note so that students learn that gender stereotypes eventually led to the discontinuation of the AAGPBL. There are so many opportunities for rich conversations about how things have changed since the 1940’s, and how they have not!
This is definitely a top shelf book for me. I have used it in classrooms from kindergarten to fifth grade, and found that it works well with all ages. By itself, the book is a terrific match for 2nd and 3rd grade standards. Check out Players in Pigtails Interactive Read Aloud Lesson Plan for everything you need for two days of meaningful instruction centered around this book. In my fifth grade classroom, this book is part of the mini-unit I teach on how baseball has been part of many important historical moments in American History. Another book featured in that unit is The United States v. Jackie Robinson. This blog post tells you more about that book, and this resource on TPT helps you bring another wonderful picture book to life in your classroom!
