John H. Ritter

Who is John H. Ritter?

John H. Ritter is an American novelist, short story writer, teacher, and lecturer. He has written six novels and numerous short stories spanning the historical, sports, and sociopolitical genres in the young adult field of literature. His first novel, Choosing Up Sides, published in 1998, won the 1999 International Reading Association Children’s Book Award for Older Readers and was designated an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults. Kirkus Reviews praised Choosing Up Sides, which attacked the once-prevalent views of religious fundamentalists toward left-handed children, as, “No ordinary baseball book, this is a rare first novel.” In 2004 Ritter received the Paterson Prize for Books for Young People for his third novel, The Boy Who Saved Baseball.

Ritter's novels have tackled subjects as diverse as the Vietnam War, the war in Iraq, the complexities of exurban land development, jazz fusion, Billy the Kid, the originations of the racial ban against African Americans in Major League Baseball, and the ascension prophecies of 2012.