Lonnie pushed his mask off his face and Molly noticed some fresh writing on the back of his hand. It was practically covered in blue ink, not just a word or phrase, but long lines of tiny letters, whole sentences. It looked like a paragraph—it could have been the first chapter of a novel.

“Aren’t you afraid of ink poisoning?” Molly asked.

“Everybody asks that,” Lonnie said.

“I wonder why.”

“Ink isn’t poisonous,” he said.

“You better hope not.”

Molly was trying to read his hand, but it wasn’t easy to do, not upside down, written across the contours of his skin. But she saw her name. Maybe it was her name, or something like it. But that’s all. She couldn’t make out the rest. If it was in a full sentence, and she was the subject, she didn’t know the predicate. How did she feel about that? Her name on his skin. She wasn’t sure.

—The Girl Who Threw Butterflies

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

The Girl Who Threw Butterflies

Cooperative Children’s Book Center Choice 2009.

A Booklist Top 10 Sports Book for Youth.

For an eighth grader, Molly Williams has more than her fair share of problems. Her father has just died in a car accident, and her mother has become a withdrawn, quiet version of herself.

Molly doesn’t want to be seen as “Miss Difficulty Overcome”; she wants to make herself known to the kids at school for something other than her father’s death. So she decides to join the baseball team. The boys’ baseball team. Her father taught her how to throw a knuckleball, and Molly hopes it’s enough to impress her coaches as well as her new teammates.

Over the course of one baseball season, Molly must figure out how to redefine her relationships to things she loves, loved, and might love: her mother; her brilliant best friend, Celia; her father; her enigmatic and artistic teammate, Lonnie; and of course, baseball.

Reviews and Praise for The Girl Who Threw Butterflies

"Lovely and memorable."

—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

 

“A lovely coming of age novel…seasoned with doses of Zen, baseball lore and history.”

—USA Today

  
 

"Mick Cochrane hits one out of the park in this poignant, pitch-perfect novel…Readers won’t soon forget the unmistakable voice of Molly Williams with her wise-beyond-her-years observations about parents, about school, about boys, about baseball and the hole left in your life after you lose someone you love. Library shelves and publishers’ catalogs are stuffed with all manner of middle-grade and young adult novels about all manner of serious topics, but rarely is one so beautifully crafted, so full of wise and witty turns of phrase and insights about the human condition."

—The Buffalo News

  
 

“With detailed baseball lingo written poetically and the plot of a kid nursing an emotional wound, Mick Cochrane scores a homerun with his touching first young-adult novel -- a hit right in line with both lovers of the sport and readers who enjoy a good story.”

—Winston Salem Journal

  
 

“Cochrane crafts an awkward yet engaging heroine whose perceptions and interactions with family, friends, and supporting characters ring true. Crisply written sports action balances the internal drama.”

—School Library Journal

  
 
The Girl Who Threw Butterflies was one of four spring books recommended for young readers by USA Today. Click here to read the article.
  
     
 

Read an Excerpt

 

Download an Audio Excerpt
 

Click the tape reel to the left to download an MP3 of Mick Cochrane reading chapter one from this book, "A Heartbreaking Dream About Toast." (Right-click and choose your download preference.)

You may alternately use the media player below to stream the audio directly from this page.

  
   
 
   
       
 
Click the tape reel to the left to download an MP3 of Mick Cochrane reading chapter two from this book, "Some Serious Junk." (Right-click and choose your download preference.)

You may alternately use the media player below to stream the audio directly from this page.
  
   
 
       

Buy The Girl Who Threw Butterflies