The hilarious and timeless story about an immigrant girl inspired by the sport she loves to find her own team--and to break down any barriers that stand in her way.

Shirley Temple Wong sails from China to America with a heart full of dreams. Her new home is Brooklyn, New York. America is indeed a land full of wonders, but Shirley doesn't know any English, so it's hard to make friends.

Then a miracle happens: baseball It's 1947, and Jackie Robinson, star of the Brooklyn Dodgers, is everyone's hero. He proves that a black man,...

Lord interweaves her own story, and that of her...

In 1932, as China shamefully kowtows under Japanese occupation, three unlikely companions are fatefully bound by their steadfast patriotism: Steel Hope, heir to a once-great aristocracy; Mountain Pine, his crippled, scholarly servant; and Firecrackers, a poor gravekeeper's daughter. In a youthful pact, they call themselves "Brothers of the Middle Heart," vowing to defend their country to the end.

Yet as war and, later, the Communist Revolution ignite, cruel circumstances separate them. One becomes a...