A Long Pitch Home by Natalie Dias Lorenzi, is a story about Bilal, a ten-year-old boy from Pakistan, who is suddenly forced to move with his mother and three younger siblings to America. They move-in with their extended family in Virginia while they wait for their father to join them.

Bilal talks regularly with his father and they compare the differences between the two countries. Bilal doesn’t want to forget his home country of Pakistan and Bilal helps his father prepare for life in America.

Back home, Bilal was the star of his cricket team, and now he’s encouraged to play baseball. He’s enrolled in a camp, but is not happy about having to catch up to his teammates. Some of the American kids are more excepting than others, but Bilal finds some close friends as he waits for his father to come to America and watch him play baseball.

The story delicately captures the challenges of extreme relocation. Children with Muslim friends and neighbors would especially like the cultural references and get a better understanding of the difficult transition to becoming an American.