FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Children’s book released on centennial of famed Honus Wagner T206 baseball card.

EAST HAMPTON, New York (February, 2009) – The Baseball Card Kid by Adam 
Osterweil has been released by Front Street Books, an imprint of Boyds Mills 
Press (A Highlights Company).  The book is an illustrated middle reader 
adventure story about two boys who travel back in time to acquire the rarest 
baseball card of all time—the Piedmont-backed Honus Wagner tobacco card—which 
was first released to the public in limited quantities in 1909.  Their journey 
will take them onto the Titanic steamship, to a vampire’s castle in 
Transylvania, and far into the future to a distant planetoid known as Earth 2. 
Will the boys return safely home with the mint-condition baseball card?  Fifty 
interior illustrations by Australian-based illustrator Craig Smith accompany the 
tale.

The Baseball Card Kid is the exciting sequel to The Comic Book Kid (2001), which 
was named a “Best Book of the Year” in 2002 by Bank Street College of Education, 
and won a Walt Disney children’s choice award for Best Adventure Book in 2002. 
In this former adventure, Brian and Paul travel back in time to acquire a mint-
condition copy of Superman #1—one of the rarest and most valuable comic books of 
all time.  School Library journal writes of The Comic Book Kid, “This 
lighthearted science-fiction story has plenty of quick action. The dialogue is 
crisp and natural with an abundance of middle school humor. There's also a 
subtle message about responsibility and friendship.”  And now Kirkus Reviews 
writes of The Baseball Card Kid, “The slapstick time-travel antics continue in 
this sequel to The Comic Book Kid…Osterweil laces his narrative with middle-
grade-style yuks and injects frequent reviews of events into his breathlessly 
paced tale. Smith punches up the short chapters further with frequent scenes of 
frantic-looking young folk in bizarre situations.”  

Adam Osterweil is a 7th grade English teacher at Springs School in Springs, New 
York.  He has taught there for thirteen years, and this is his fourth book for 
children (see www.adamosterweil.com or call 1-866-kidsread for further 
information).  Osterweil tries to make reading fun and relevant for reluctant 
readers by writing fast-paced action-packed adventure stories about topics that 
kids enjoy.  He draws from his own students to find inspiration for his 
characters.  Craig Smith, the illustrator, has illustrated over 200 books and 
has won many awards in Australia.  He created over 100 intricate pencil 
illustrations for Osterweil’s two-book time-travel story.

Honus Wagner is considered one of the greatest baseball players of all time.  He 
batted .327 lifetime and is most known for his playing career with the 
Pittsburgh Pirates from 1900-1917 and as a coach thereafter. The T206 Honus 
Wagner card was released in 1909, but very few cards were distributed to the 
public (estimates placed the number in circulation at 50-200).  Rumors abound 
about the reasons for the small number of printed cards, but their scarcity has 
made it the most coveted baseball card in history.  One specimen in 8.0 
condition (10.0 being the highest) recently sold for 2.8 million dollars.  Even 
a lesser card in 3.0 condition recently sold for $791,000.

Contact:

Adam Osterweil
www.adamosterweil.com 
adam@adamosterweil.com 
1-866-kidsread