https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/community/articles/best-jewish-childrens-books-of-2020-1

Get a Grip, Vivy Cohen by Sarah Kapit feels way too accomplished to be a debut novel. Vivy is an autistic 11-year-old who loves baseball and especially loves the knuckleball. She practices pitching to her big brother constantly, but when she’s scouted by a local coach for an all-boys team, she has to convince her overprotective mom to let her play. The book is told in letters and emails between Vivy and her idol, major league pitcher (and noted knuckleballer) VJ Capello. I’m not usually a fan of epistolary novels; they can feel static and awkwardly exposition-y. But Vivy’s voice is perfection (Kapit is herself autistic) and the way we gradually learn about VJ’s own struggles is flawlessly handled. The book is short, funny, and very moving. It makes autistic behaviors and coping mechanisms—flapping hands, shutting down when overwhelmed, an overly literal understanding of language, obsessions like Vivy’s mania for pitching—comprehensible to us neurotypical folks, and I’m sure readers on the spectrum will feel seen and recognized. You needn’t be a baseball fan to love this book (though if you are me, and like Vivy were the only girl on a Little League team, and if you are so fascinated by the knuckleball you actually read R.A. Dickey’s memoir voluntarily, you will be in hog heaven). It’s utterly winsome.