Choosing Up Sides In 1994, Ritter received the
Judy Blume Award and a cash grant from the
Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) for a novel in progress. In 1996, he submitted his first novel,
Choosing Up Sides, through
Curtis Brown (literary agents), to
Philomel Books, then a division of
Penguin Putnam in New York, where the novel became the first acquisition of junior editor, Michael Green. Since then, Green has risen to become editorial director and Publisher of
Philomel Books and has edited all six of Ritter's novels.
Choosing Up Sides is set in southern
Ohio in the 1920s. The novel's protagonist, 13-year-old Luke Bledsoe, is the oldest child of a preacher. Born left-handed, Luke is, in the eyes of his fundamentalist father, Ezekiel, a heathen and potential follower of Satan, for he believes the left hand is the hand of the devil. The authoritarian Ezekiel tries to "cure" Luke of his left-handedness, but with little luck. When Ezekiel becomes minister of the Holy River of John the Baptist Church in Crown Falls, Ohio, Luke inadvertently becomes involved with the local baseball team, which won the county championship the previous year and hopes to repeat their success. Unfortunately, in addition to viewing left-handedness as a conscious choice, "Pure backwards of what's right and good," Ezekiel also views baseball as a temptation that needs to be resisted, so Luke must practice pitching in secret, by throwing rocks and may apples in the woods. Early on, while Luke is watching a forbidden game, a ball lands at his feet. Throwing it back with his left hand, he amazes the crowd with both distance and placement. The ballplayers and his uncle, Micah, a sports editor for a northern Ohio newspaper, set about convincing Luke that wasting a talent such as his is the actual sin. When Luke decides to pitch for the team, a confrontation with his father ends in a violent beating, which later leads directly to the death of the father, when a crippled Luke is unable to save the man from drowning. Reviewing
Choosing Up Sides, Elizabeth Bush described it in the ''Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
as a novel that "pits fire and brimstone Fundamentalism against a rival religion—Baseball—and treats both with cathartic understanding." Patricia K. Ladd wrote in The ALAN Review'' that Ritter "addresses themes of autonomy and independence common to young adult readers and portrays plot through authentic dialect and well-developed characters", and his uses of dialogue, similes, metaphors, and imagery "add dimensions to the plot that leave readers pondering the book's messages long after turning the final page." Dr. Stefani Koorey in her
Voice of Youth Advocates review maintained, "Unlike many sports novels,
Choosing Up Sides does more than offer a mere glimpse of the grand old game of baseball—it takes a deeper look at faith, truth, and individuality", going on to dub the tale a "well-designed study of personal choice." For many years, Ritter painted the story the same way book critics did. The IRA Award-winning novel did indeed take a deeper look at faith. As Ritter revealed, nearly ten years later,
Choosing Up Sides was actually inspired by a law passed by
Colorado voters in 1992 known as Amendment 2 to the
Colorado State Constitution, which prohibited enactment or enforcement of anti-discrimination protections for gay, lesbian and bisexual Coloradans. Though later declared unconstitutional by the
U.S. Supreme Court, the law's enactment inspired Ritter to search for a metaphorical children's story paralleling the discriminatory amendment and the religious-based beliefs behind it. Responding to a question in a November 17, 2003, interview by Holly Atkins for the
St. Petersburg Times, Ritter hints at the book's meaning: :
Atkins: "In ‘A Note from the Author’ at the end of
Choosing Up Sides you write about where the idea for this novel originated. So although on one level this is a novel about a left-handed future baseball star, it's really about the larger issue of discrimination?" : :
Ritter: "Yes—and religious-based discrimination, to be specific. That's the hardest prejudice to defeat, since it is delivered bearing a religious righteousness. I remember, as a boy, hearing segregation and racism being justified from the pulpit and I could not comprehend this glaring hypocrisy, totally contrary to what Jesus taught. Only later did I realize that the Bible often gets interpreted and reinterpreted in such a way as to reinforce one's own bigotry and social bias. I think it's important for children to recognize this practice as soon as possible and apply their critical thinking skills to it, since it certainly continues today." Around the year 2007, Ritter began to sense a cultural shift toward tolerance, even in the most conservative states where his books are most popular, and began testing the waters toward a public disclosure of his true inspiration. At this point, Ritter began to openly acknowledge and discuss the metaphorical underpinnings of
Choosing Up Sides in schools and conferences across the country. A
Publishers Weekly reviewer wrote that Ritter "tackles tough subjects relating to violence in sports, religious hypocrisy, and the
Vietnam War while creating layers of metaphors which neatly unfold..." and described the novel as a "powerful lesson in compassion." Writing in
The ALAN Review, Patricia K. Ladd noted "Readers are left questioning societal mores and values, rules and politics, and their own moral development," and Roger Leslie commented in
Booklist that
Over the Wall is a "fully fleshed-out story about compassion and absolution." After publishing two completely different books in time and place, Ritter began to be noticed for his ability to switch writing style and voice at will. His editor at Philomel, Michael Green, told writer Kelly Milner Halls, in an interview on authorial voice for the ''2002 Edition of Children's Writer's and Illustrator's Market'', that when it comes to voice, "John is a true chameleon." In the wake of
Over the Wall, with its strong anti-war theme, Ritter viewed America's response to the
9/11/2001 events with increasing dismay. Writing in the September 2002 volume of the
California English Journal, Ritter stated, "The strain of this past year has been tough on me. After witnessing for days the grand, immediate outpouring of selflessness, generosity, and sacrifice in lower
Manhattan—the ‘small friendly town of New York City’ that I celebrated in my recent novel,
Over the Wall—I now sit in a blue funk, disappointed in our nation's response and the public outcry for further military retaliation. Discouraged might be a better word. I mean, why do I even bother to write books about empathy and reaching out to others, why do our teachers bother to offer lessons on the same thing, when in crisis, we hunker in survivor mode under a blanket of ethnocentrism, fear, and nationalistic fervor? Seems to me that these were the precise sentiments that drove the hijackers."
The Boy Who Saved Baseball Ritter finally met with widespread recognition in 2003 with his third novel,
The Boy Who Saved Baseball. In an admitted attempt to lift his spirits, Ritter took on the U.S. Invasion of
Iraq by disguising it as an environmental issue and using a lighter and more humorous vein in a work based loosely on
Gabriel García Márquez's
One Hundred Years of Solitude. the story centers on Doc Altenheimer, the eccentric octogenarian owner of an apple orchard in Dillontown,
California, who is preparing to sell his acres of land—including the town's century-old baseball field—to wealthy outside developers including a banker from
Texas in cahoots with a comical and dishonest mayor. After talking with twelve-year-old Tom Gallagher, however, Doc decides to let the fate of his land rest on the outcome of a single baseball game pitting a team of local ballplayers against an all-star squad from a neighboring community. "Do or die," Doc tells the townsfolk. "If our team wins… the town stays the way it is. If they lose, bring on the bulldozers." With the help of a mysterious newcomer, Cruz de la Cruz, Tom convinces a disgraced former major leaguer and social recluse, Dante Del Gato, to whip the Dillontown team into shape. Del Gato's character, Ritter reveals in an interview for the Baker & Taylor book distributor's newsletter, "was partially based on the real life tragic hero,
Ken Caminiti, who was a big league MVP and batting champ in the '90s, but struggled with addictions, leaving the game under a cloud, and was dead by age 41." Once again heralding Ritter's authorial voice, a starred review in
Publishers Weekly said the book's prose was "Enthralling...at times stunning," and that, "Ritter delivers a baseball tale of legendary dimension, featuring several larger-than-life characters." Writing in the Summer 2003 edition of
The ALAN Review, editor Pamela Sissi Carroll noted, "This uplifting novel is a joy to read and to carry in the mind. Like Ritter's previous novels...[he] addresses the realities that trouble today's teens and the forces that shape and reshape local and national cultures. Yet John H. Ritter's game is unfailingly hopeful and encouragingly positive." Blair Christolon observed in
School Library Journal that the work "is peppered with both optimism and dilemmas; it has plenty of play-by-play action, lots of humor, and a triumphant ending."
"Baseball in Iraq" Despite the reception and commercial success of
The Boy Who Saved Baseball, Ritter could not shake the ever-increasing depression he felt over the suffering caused by the U.S.-led wars in
Afghanistan and
Iraq and subsequent loss of civil liberties at home. He used the invitation from editors M. Jerry and Helen Weiss, to contribute a short story to their fantasy anthology,
Dreams and Vision, which examines the morality of going to war versus terrorism. The story, "Baseball in Iraq," is a somber depiction of a newly dead American soldier facing a life review by a six-foot-tall rooster and a sympathetic Oklahoma City bomber,
Timothy McVeigh. Writing in
The Washington Post, longtime Book World reviewer
Paul di Filippo states, "Overall, the Weisses exhibit fine taste and editorial restraint, although...their selection of the [clichéd] opening piece is puzzling...But then a challenging story such as John H. Ritter's ‘Baseball in Iraq (Being the True Story of the Ghost of Gunnery Sergeant T. J. McVeigh)’ comes along and dispels all cant and cliché with its elegant portrayal of the reviled terrorist working out his karma."
Under the Baseball Moon In a further bid to battle overwhelming personal despair, Ritter chose a somewhat autobiographical skateboarder from a musical family as the focus of his fourth novel,
Under the Baseball Moon, to examine the true definition of happiness and success for an artist in the midst of a Faustian bargain: professional good fortune paid for by an overwhelming loss of spirit and joy. In a starred review in
Booklist, writer Bill Ott noted that "Ritter pulls out all the stops in his myth-heavy plot, but what really makes the book soar is his sense of place: the laid-back, hippie-influenced, communal spirit of OB permeates every scene, offering stark contrast to the coldly commercial world toward which Andy aspires. As in his earlier work, Ritter melds style to content beautifully, telling his story in a hip, street-smart argot that perfectly matches Andy's trumpet improvisations. Teen friendly, lots of fun, never preachy, but with plenty of thematic pizzazz," and a
Publishers Weekly contributor noted that "Ritter's dialogue crackles with the rhythms of the funky California setting, and Andy's passion and ambition give the novel its heartbeat." In the novel, Andy Ramos, a skilled trumpeter who hopes to revolutionize the music scene with his band's fusion of Latin jazz, rock, and hip-hop, finds himself strangely drawn to Glory Martinez, a childhood rival and talented softball pitcher who has returned to the neighborhood. Andy and Glory soon discover that their talents peak when they perform together, but when a mysterious benefactor promises to launch Andy's musical career, he agrees to walk away from his budding romance. Asked whether there were any autobiographical characterizations in his work, Ritter said, "Andy Ramos, the main character in
Under the Baseball Moon, is fairly autobiographical. I wrote tons of songs and dreamed of making it big in the rock world from age 15 to 22. His father, though, is closer to who I am today in his approach to life and his view of the entertainment industry's customary habit of reining in and ‘branding the maverick’ of talented, rising stars whom they deem as being too far out creatively." Questioning the uniqueness of the characters in the novel, the interviewer commented to Ritter that in
Under the Baseball Moon, "Glory Martinez is a handful. It seems like she stepped out of a
Joyce Carol Oates novel. Can you elaborate on why she had such a tough upbringing and still comes across with charm and drive? She is one of the more intriguing characters I’ve come across in recent YA literature." Ritter replied that he sees her charm "as being hard-won through a conscious decision she made a few years before the book begins...I know from personal experience how hard it is to grow up happy and somewhat normal in a single parent home when that parent is an alcoholic. As you get older, though, you have a choice, and it can go one of two ways. Either you become your antagonistic, anti-social parent and repeat his mistakes or, by watching and suffering through his failures, you become the opposite. Of those two choices, Glory made the healthy one, which, as you say, is quite unusual in YA literature. But kids in Glory's situation do occasionally develop a desire to dream big, coupled with the drive to succeed, and I find this rare character far more fun and interesting to write about than the typical." Marilyn Taniguchi asserted in
School Library Journal that "Ritter writes in an idiom-laden, mock-epic style full of bombast and bravado...Reminiscent of
Sid Fleischman." Of significance is the Author's Note included in the paperback edition (Puffin 2010) revealing Ritter's inspiration. The "Desperado" of the title is not Billy the Kid, but a Major League Baseball owner,
William Hulbert, who along with
Albert Spalding and
Cap Anson, added impetus to the movement to "steal" baseball from African American players, a little known fact in baseball lore, yet one Ritter believed showed a character even more nefarious: "Others would also tend to downplay baseball's racial divide, as personified by the management of these Chicago White Stockings (later to become the
Chicago Cubs). I was not about to do that, having worked on the manuscript from early 2007 to June 2008, paralleling the launch and quixotic presidential quest of a mixed-race U.S. Senator and dedicated Chicago White Sox fan. And yes, as I note, Long John Dillon did stand up once and say, "For the first time in my life, I am proud to be a part of this land."—a sentiment I heard echoed across this beautiful nation repeatedly as I penned this tome. And in those moments I found hope and grace." Among critics, the book received virtually no comments alluding to the novel's racial thrust. Only Ian Chipman, reviewing the work in
Booklist, noted that
The Desperado Who Stole Baseball provided "a good child's eye introduction to baseball's segregated past."
Fenway Fever Ritter's sixth novel,
Fenway Fever, a book his publisher describes as "another magical novel that celebrates teamwork—and the innate power to heal that even the least among us is born with," is scheduled to be released on April 12, 2012, to coincide with the 100 year anniversary of
Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts. Ritter is currently working on a utopian novel,
2020 Vision, premised on the changes American society must go through after a floodgate of top-secret disclosures occur upon the release of undisputed evidence of U.S. Government participation in the events of September 11, 2001. ==Bibliography==