Dandi enjoys nothing more than baseball, and so after the boys at school tell her their lunchtime game is now boys only, she enters an essay contest hoping to become a bat boy for the Kansas City A's, not realizing the contest is for boys only. Includes author's note on Title IX.

After a pogrom forces Batya's Russian Jewish family to leave their home and make the journey to America, Batya hopes her new life will offer her a chance to become a woodcarver like her beloved father. But while many things in America are different from the world of her shtetl, one thing seems to be the same: only boys can be woodcarvers. Still, Batya is determined to learn. With the same perseverance that helped her family survive and start over...