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Crawford "Craw" Cope has anger issues. Or so they say.
When Craw is sentenced to community service for hitting his father in the head with a baseball bat, he accepts his punishment without objection, knowing he's actually lucky. If he weren't the son of a famous former baseball player, he'd probably have gotten it a lot worse. So, Craw keeps his mouth shut and takes what life gives him. Like always.
But when he arrives at community service, which frustratingly turns out to be repairing a dilapidated ball field to be named after his father, he meets Hannah Flores, a punk rock enthusiast trapped in the Ozarks with zero filter. As Craw navigates his own explosive home life, he learns more about hers. And as their friendship blossoms into something more, he begins to understand the importance of speaking his truth, even when doing so might destroy the only life he's ever known.
"A wise, emotionally rich tale of a young man finding his way through family trauma." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Cope Field is a commanding novel in which a troubled student learns difficult truths about his family and chooses a new path forward." —Foreword Reviews
"Perfect for reluctant high-school readers, especially baseball fans. It can be a tough read at times, with instances of abuse, drugs, and murder, but this work of realistic fiction will resonate with the right readers. Consider this for those who appreciated Holly Goldberg Sloan's I'll Be There (2011)." —Booklist
This information about Cope Field was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
T. L. Simpson is an award-winning journalist and novelist living in Arkansas. He is currently the editor of his hometown paper, The Courier. His fiction draws from his experiences growing up in the Ozarks, covering both sports and crime. Simpson lives in the Arkansas River Valley, between the Ozark and Ouachita Mountains, with his wife and four children. His debut contemporary YA novel, Strong Like You, released in 2024.
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