Summerland by Michael Chabon

Summerland=baseball. In the four worlds of the Middling, Winterlands, Summerland and the Gleaming, everyone plays baseball. On Clam Island nobody plays baseball except four teams. Ruth's Fluff-n-Fold Roostershave lost every single game that season. On the morning of a game Ethan Feld, the second baseman, wakes up to find a werefox sitting on him.Cutbelly takes him to Summerland to meet the Boar Tooth mob of ferishers, also known as the fair folk. there he is the despair of the Home Run King of Three Worlds, Cinquefoil. They dig up an oracle clam who says,
"Feld is the wanted one. Feld has the stuff he needs." Everyone thinks it means Ethan, but it's really Ethan's dad. But Coyote kidnaps Mr. Feld. Ethan, the Roosters pitcher Jennifer T., a changeling called Thor, and Cinquefoil come to find him and save the world as the Shadowtails baseball team. Thor scampers them to Summerland and they cross the Raucous Mountains, cross the Big River and battle with the biggest catfish of all time, almost get eaten by a giant, are taken prisoner by ferishers and play ball all the way. They are joined by a Sasquatch, a five feet tall giant, a knee-high princess, and a wererat. Finally the Shadowtails arrive at Diamond Green. all this time Mr. Feld has been making an envolope to put Coyotes poison in to end the world. What looks like the last game of baseball the worlds will ever play is played. Ethan hits a homerun that opens the Gleaming and Old Mr. Wood comes out with his relatives. Ethan and his dad and Jennifer T. go back to Clam Island.

Summerland is awesome! mythology, stories, ball, just the rigt amount of everything. My favorite guy is Jennifer T. She's consistent, works hard at what she loves, has a hard life, and sympathatic to the problems of others. I definately reccomend Summerland.