"Drab, emaciated teen with overbite / wants to meet pretty much anybody."

In Shakespeare Bats Cleanup, Kevin Boland finds himself washed up at age fourteen. He comes down with mono, and the baseball team loses its MVP first baseman. What's a guy to do? He turns to writing poetry and discovers a lot about himself and life as he works his way through haiku and sonnets to pantoums, ballads, blank verse, and a couple of couplets. Along the way, he acquires a girlfriend named Mira and discovers that poetry is "almost as cool as baseball."

He comes back stronger than ever in the sequel Shakespeare Makes the Playoffs. Playing baseball and still writing poetry. And then he meets Amy, who just wants to be his "poetry friend." Life is suddenly complicated ... especially where Mira is concerned. Will villanelles, sestinas, and Transylvanian limericks see him through?