Bats Books

I got this book a couple of months ago and must say, I am impressed. There are a lot of "Mental Aspects of Baseball" books, but none are as clear and insightful about ways for players to instantly push their game to a new level. Little cues to look for, what to do when you're picked off, how to size up the defense, and much more, covering all aspects of the game.
Baseball is very difficult and requires a lot of practice to master the mechanics of pitching, hitting, and fielding, so much of the literature in the sport focuses on these things. And because even with a lot of practice, the failure rates are so high, much is written about maintaining proper perspectives and postitive attitudes.
This book is a slap at over-coaching and the loss of sandlot play in recent years. It says kids have been playing organized baseball from such young ages that they don't think for themselves anymore. If a coach puts up the 'stop sign' they stop, even when they know they can make it to the next base. They don't bunt or steal without getting the sign to do that first, even when they know it will work. They are afraid of the coaches wrath, and they are not taking advantage of opportunities presented to pressure the defense, to steal on a lazy catcher or a predictable pitcher. They play safe, to avoid making mistakes and their coaches' anger, rather than playing aggressively and using every angle they can to win a game. How do you learn to get a maximum lead if you are not willing to go too far and get picked off once in a while? Coaches need to let the kids play sometimes, not just to win today, but to learn today what they can use tomorrow.

Want your player to be the best he can and make a quantuum leap in his baseball IQ in a short time? Get this book and let the kid have fun abusing all the perfect little robots out there. I have seen this work now, and it is amazing what an average kid with a good baseball head and an aggressive attitude can do even at Varsity High School levels.

Mary Roberts Rinehart was the American Agatha Christie. Both were great mystery writers. While Christie was justifibly famous for her ingeneous plots, in my opinion Rinehart was the better writer. Furthermore, Rinehart had an uncanny ability to creat and sustain throughout each of her books an atmosphere not merely of suspence but of foreboding. Although reading a Rinehart novel is great fun, it is also rather scary. Her classic story The Bat is no exception. If you like well-written mystery novels that make you want to keep the door locked while you read them, read The Bat -- and all of Mary Roberts Rinehart's other classics.

A great follow-up book to the Ecology of Bats. A must for any bat biologist who is serious about their work. I cannot wait until Dr. Kunz publishes a work on Bats of the United States with color photo plates.

A FUN book to read with your children. Good drawings, also lessons for kids to listen to their parents.

I originally bought this book for a presentation in one of my college classes and ended up falling in love with it.

My daughter received this book as a gift when she was just 4. As a child who loves language and animals, she was thrilled with the lilting lyric poetry and the tale of a bat caught in the tourist-filled dining room. The main character "strange Melissa" is appealing in its originality, sensitivity and all too rare celebration of a female heroine. Any observant and intuitive child would find her an especially sympathetic character. That being said, in my opinion, the poetry is the reason we return to the book again and again. Crescent Dragonwagon has distinguished herself with her flowing verse that is not only sophisticated but delightful to the ear. We consider it on par with David Kirk (of Miss Spider fame) and Dr. Seuss. Enjoy!

The Bat Mitzvah Club: Debbie's Story is a novel by Shayna Meiseles about Debbie, a young girl attending the Chicago Hebrew Academy who worriedly anticipates her Bat Mitzvah (the Jewish ceremony for girls transitioning from childhood to adulthood), and becomes mortified when her mother enrolls her in the Bat Mitzvah Club, where she learns of an unsolved family mystery from her grandmother. The Bat Mitzvah Club: Debbie's Story is enthusiastically recommended as being an adventurous, thoughtful and enjoyable story.

I loved this book! Very different, but in a great way. It's perfect! I mean I could never put it down, I even sat on the floor everytime I went to a store and read this book. You will love it.

Ever since my daughter was conceived she has been immersed in books. From audio books played over the womb, the nightly ritual of reading aloud with mommy and daddy, to our weekly trips to the library, her world is wrapped in books. On her third birthday, she was given a book called Bat Time. Imagine my surprise when this book became her most requested story. Since that time, Bat Time has been read at least once or twice every night.

All of us find a particular comfort level in one or two books during our life and they become our signature story. When my daughter met the characters of Leila, Mr. Mackerty, Ms. Kottmier, Mr. Parault, Mom, Dad, and of course, those wonderful bats and other animals, she immediately identified and found a little piece of her own imaginary world. She always asks how Mr. Mackerty's hair got so white. She feels the warm water when Leila is taking her bath. She snuggles close to her own daddy when Leila's daddy reads to her. She loves to count the number of ducks flying across the dark starlit sky. I have to remind her every night that the cat is named Coriander. And she gets as excited as Leila when the bats finally appear and do their nightly dance in the sky looking for insects. And finally, she points out that Leila is asleep and we have to be quiet now or we will wake her up. She also tells me that she doesn't want to sleep with a bat, she just wants to watch them in the book.

Bat Time is a book that lets children spark their imagination and see a world of love, caring, closeness, and understanding of the creatures that inhabit our neighborhoods and are a part of our lives. This book shows that the misunderstood bat has friends and that are loved too. I highly recommend this book for preschoolers and above...

Dr. Merlin Tuttle is a real superhero who has used his lifelong love of bats to begin to turn around their undeserved reputation as pests. He gives the rest of us a start in appreciating their value as pollinators of some our favorite foods and in controlling the mosquito population. He taught himself photography in order to potray the worlds' bats in a more positive fashion--the majority of the color close-up bat portrait photos are his. His enthusiasm about what they can do gets us all interested in exploring bats. Though he now has the help of the organization he founded, Bat Conservation International, he has often single-handedly convinced farmers, developers and even the city of Austin to preserve the bat colonies in their domains. Dr. Tuttle has proved that one person can really make a difference.