Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
Babe Ruth Saves Baseball
Illustrator: Richard Walz
Fiction
For ages 6 to 8
Random House, 2005 ISBN: 978-0375930485
Babe Ruth was the kind of baseball player who attracted attention. He began playing in the major leagues in 1914 for the Boston Red Sox. He was a pitcher, and a really good one, but people began to notice that Babe was a pretty powerful hitter too. In 1915 he hit his first home run when the Red Sox were playing against the New York Yankees and the coach was so impressed that he decided that Babe was going to be hitting more often from then on.
In 1919 Babe hit the most hits ever – he hit twenty-nine of them. Unfortunately that year was a bad one for baseball. The Chicago White Sox threw the World Series and they were found out. The scandal made the fans furious and many of them didn’t want to have anything to do with baseball. Many people wondered if baseball would ever recover from such a blow.
Then, in 1920, Babe Ruth went to New York to play for the Yankees. The fans wondered if he would be able to hit twenty-nine home runs again that year. Babe said he would hit fifty! In fact he ended up hitting fifty-four and he got the fans so excited that the Yankees had to build a new ballpark to accommodate them all. It was called Yankee Stadium but a reporter named it “The House That Ruth Built” because it was Babe Ruth’s playing that got the fans back.
This excellent beginner reader title tells a wonderful true story about a real baseball hero who made an enormous contribution to the game. Written with enthusiasm and illustrated throughout, this is a book which will challenge young readers in just the right way and which will keep them engaged and interested from the first page to the last.
