12-year-old Roy O'Callahan's plan to be the pitcher for his father's little league team, play at the little league world series and finally get the girl of his dreams was right on track until the refugees arrived. Not only was the refugees' middle eastern culture foreign to the small, southern town of Taylor, West Virginia, so was their sport which sounded like it was named after an insect.
Despite initial resistance to the strangers in his school, Roy soon recognizes the similarities between the sport he loves and theirs. After being passed over as pitcher by his father, Roy befriends the orphaned refugee boys to learn their game and teach them his own. When the refugees' host family, a wealthy middle eastern restaurateur, builds a cricket field in the park named after Roy's grandfather and within close proximity of the town's prized baseball diamond, the refugee boys realize that in fleeing one war they have only found themselves in the midst of another. Resenting the fact that the foreigners have disgraced the O'Callahan name by building a cricket field in his father's park and luring his son away from baseball, Roy's father will stop at nothing to rid the town of the cricket field and those who created it.
The Grass and Clay Field is a Middle Grade novel about finding commonality in a land of divisiveness, prejudice and fear. It is about realizing that despite the strong desire to fit in, sometimes what is harder than being different is remaining the same.
