Home Run: The Story of Babe Ruth - Softcover

Burleigh, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0152045996 ISBN 13: 9780152045999

Publisher: Clarion Books, 2003

Synopsis

Like most boys, he spent his summers playing ball on a dirt lot, but George Herman Ruth, Jr. followed his dreams to become a legend. He is the Babe—Babe Ruth—and baseball is his game.

Powerful oil paintings and spare, dramatic text draw readers into the mind of this larger-than-life sports hero. Reproductions of vintage-style baseball cards throughout the book detail Babe Ruth's career highlights.

Home Run is a compelling portrait of a man, and of a time when baseball was truly America's game.

About this title

Review:

"He has always had this swing. This easy, upthrusting swing. This 'pretty' swing, not taught by any coach. One day the Babe just swung--and it was there. It was his." Combining stirring, poetic prose and Mike Wimmer's realistic illustrations, Home Run conveys the feeling of excitement and awe that must have been present at a baseball game in which the great Babe Ruth played. Robert Burleigh, who previously collaborated with Wimmer on the award-winning Flight: The Journey of Charles Lindbergh, writes this picture-book tribute "for my Father--who loved the game ... for my son, Eli, to help him learn the spirit of can-do." His great love for both shines through. Our stomachs knot and spirits soar as Ruth steps up to the plate. Home Run softly draws us into the story, and the illustrations, rendered in oil on canvas, have an expansiveness and glow that lift them from the page. The gentle tribute is enhanced by "vintage-style baseball cards" that highlight aspects of Babe Ruth's career ("The Bambino loved driving low-slung convertibles, donning silk shirts and coonskin coats, and downing huge meals"), allowing Burleigh the opportunity to include important information without destroying the perfect simplicity of the main story. A treasure for anyone with a love of the game, Home Run is also powerfully affecting for those new to the excitement it holds. (Click to see a sample spread. Illustration from Home Run by Robert Burleigh, illustration © 1998 by Mike Wimmer, reproduced by permission of Harcourt Brace & Company.) (Ages 5 and older) --Aimee Damman

About the Author:

Robert Burleigh is the author of many books for children including Flight: the journey of Charles Lindbergh, which won the Orbus Pictus award. He lives in Chicago, Illinois.

MIKE WIMMER is the illustrator of several books for young readers, including, Will Rogers: An American Legend by Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating. He lives in Norman, Oklahoma.

About this edition

• Publisher: Clarion Books
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0152045996
• ISBN 13: 9780152045999
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 32
• Illustrator: Wimmer Mike