Period 4 Tyler Moon

Book Reporter 5-10-2010

For my book reporter, I chose to read, High Heat, by Carl Dueker. As the exposition unfolds; the
setting of the story is during the present time, and the location is in Seattle Washington, and most of the
action happens during most baseball games. The main characters in this story are, Reese and Shane.
The problem that Shane, the main character, has to overcome is that his dad shot himself in the head
and died. Then Shane hit a kid in the head with a baseball, while pitching, and he just can’t baseball the
way he used to before he hit him. The type of conflict is Person vs. self, the conflict is also Internal, and
the point of view is 1st person, Shane tells the story.

The first major event that happens is that after selling cars to drug dealers, Shane’s Dad is in a
lot of legal trouble, so he decided to shoot himself in the head with a gun. Shane went to a really fancy
school and lived in a really rich neighborhood, but once his Dad killed himself, they had to move because
they weren’t able to pay for their expensive house. They moved to a lower class neighborhood and then
they had to go a public school. His mom also had to get a job so that they could pay for that house.
Shane has trouble making friends at his new school. He also has to go through the trauma of losing his
dad.

The second major event that happens is that Shane starts to make new friends. These friends
aren’t the greatest of people to be hanging out with. His new friends have him steal from a convenience
store. They steal beer from it. They eventually get caught doing this. The cops take him to court, and
he is on probation for 1 year, and he has to do 20 hours of community service. For his community
service, he has to fix up a baseball field for a local Boys and Girls Club. The person in charge of him while
he worked, was the baseball coach of the school team. Shane didn’t know that he was the coach at the
time. Shane eventually finishes his community service, and school is starting. His probation officer
wants him to see a councilor to fix his “drinking problems,” he really doesn’t want to go, so the officer
says that he could join the baseball team instead of talking to the councilor, so he joined the baseball
team.

The third major event occurs when Shane is pitching for a game against his old school. The
batter that is up, Reese, who is part of the family that bought Shane’s house, is an AWESOME hitter.
Shane pitched two outside pitches to Reese, so that he would be leaning to the outside, so when Reese
thought that Shane would pitch another outside pitch, he would be ready. Instead, Shane accidentally
threw it straight at Reese’s head! When Reese was hit, he just fell and the game ended. He was then
taken to the hospital. Shane felt really bad that he hit Reese, so he went to the hospital to see if he was
okay, two times, but he was too scared to talk to him to say that he was sorry because his parents were
there. Now, whenever Shane is up to bat, he is too scared to play at his best, because he is scared that
he will get hit in the head again.

The Climax of High Heat occurs when Shane and Reese start to play a pick-up game of baseball
every day. During the summer, all of the kids play baseball. Then when fall starts, the kids that played
in the pickup games start to play soccer, but Reese and Shane still wanted to play baseball. Shane and
Reese started to pitch and hit against each other, they progressed as they became more confident.
Finally, after they had been practicing for a while, Reese wanted Shane to pitch his hardest against him.
Shane did so, and Reese wasn’t doing so well at first. It was strike after strike, and Reese barely swung
Period 4 Tyler Moon
Book Reporter 5-10-2010

the bat. Reese started to do better against Shane’s pitching, but not as good as he was before he got hit
in the head with a baseball. Later, when Shane and Reese are talking, Shane told Reese that he hit him
in the head with the baseball on purpose! Reese then said that it doesn’t matter anymore because he
had already been hit, like what a tough guy would say.

The resolution happens when Shane’s school baseball team start to start playing like pros. They
start the baseball season. His team starts off doing very well. They play against Shane’s old school, and
Reese is on that team. During the bottom of the last inning, the tying run was on third and Reese was up
to bat, while Shane was pitching. Then Shane struck him out to win the game, 6-5! Later, Shane’s Mom
had become assistant manager at the restaurant that she worked at was now able to be at home more.
After they had won, the coach bought all of the players’ pizza at a pizza place to celebrate winning
against Shane’s old school, and Reese and Shane continued their baseball seasons’.