TATAY'S TEAM

She has been invisible for months. That is about to change. Eleven-year-old JoAhn Reyes (pronounced Jo-AHN) moved from the Philippines to Black Oak, Texas, when her mother remarried and promptly disappeared. Not into thin air. Into that particular kind of invisible where people look right through you, get your name wrong, and don't notice either. In Black Oak, softball is everything. And when a stray ball rolls to JoAhn's feet one evening at Richards Field and she fires it back with the instinct of a girl who spent her childhood throwing rocks at guava trees, Coach Fournier sees something the rest of the town has missed entirely. As a slap hitter, JoAhn finally finds her footing, fast, instinctive, and impossible to ignore. Off the field, she carries something even more powerful: a notebook full of her grandfather Tatay's Filipino proverbs that her teammates can't stop writing on their batting gloves. But when JoAhn spots a girl eating alone in the school cafeteria, the same corner table where she once sat in silence, she learns that the greatest plays happen far from any softball diamond. TATAY'S TEAM is Book One of The Kindness Club series, a warm, funny, and deeply felt story about belonging, identity, and the courage it takes to cross the room for someone who needs it. Perfect for fans of Front Desk by Kelly Yang and Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga. For readers ages 8-12 / Grades 3-7.