THE BABE RUTH BALLET SCHOOL

A humorous story of childhood friendship between a dedicated, professional, nine-year-old Issy Archer, and her home-run-hitting buddy Babe describes a lost chapter in baseball lore, about the time in 1923 when the Babe and the spitball pitcher Issy danced the ballet in Yankee Stadium.

Grade 1-3?This peculiar book features baseball great Babe Ruth and nine-year-old Issy Archer, an aspiring ballet dancer who's also a successful pitcher for the 1923 New York Yankees. The girl and Babe are best friends, and while he at first balks at her desire to dance, he later begins taking lessons himself, which significantly improves his hitting. She finally decides to give up baseball to devote herself to ballet; in Issy's final game, the Babe comes off his sick-bed to hit a home run after which the two dance together into center field. The story starts slowly and never picks up steam. While most of the picture-book set won't be familiar with Ruth, the insertion of the dancing scenes will probably bewilder the few young baseball fans who know his name. The highlight of the book is the outstanding artwork that runs across three-fourths of each double-page spread. The colorful caricatures of Ruth and some of his contemporaries are well rendered and quite expressive in a goofy, deadpan sort of way. For a better mixture of the Babe and fiction try Donald Hall's When Willard Met Babe Ruth (Harcourt, 1996), which is aimed at a slightly older audience.?Tom S. Hurlburt, La Crosse Public Library, WI
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Despite a dynamite opening line ("The last 9-year-old girl to play Big League baseball was Issy Archer of the 1923 New York Yankees"), this picture book debut quickly unravels. Issy's famous spitball makes her as celebrated a pitcher as her best friend Babe Ruth is a hitter, and the two pal around after games. Issy's secret penchant for dancing, however, puts a strain on the friendship (she's afraid he'll laugh at her). Instead, Babe takes up hoofing himself, crediting ballet lessons for his success on the baseball diamond. The childlike premise gives way to an adult sensibility, evident in the arch narration and in winking references to Ernest Hemingway, but clearest in the art. Shortt renders his figures as troll-like caricatures with oversized heads and foreshortened bodies, giving them sour, creepy expressions. A flatfooted fantasy. All ages.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This droll debut by Shortt tells the story of the friendship between baseball's greatest slugger, Babe Ruth, and Issy Archer, the nine-year-old spitball-hurling whiz of the 1923 Yankees. Never were two players closer, but Issy has a secret: She wants to be a dancer. Her lessons cut into her out-of-ballpark time with Babe, and he feels left out. When she reveals her secret (``since you can't live without knowing''), Babe joins her at dance practice, and even performs some fancy footwork for the public. Years later, Issy teaches at a Parisian dance school, Le Corps de Ballet de Babe Ruth. Shortt melds light drama to crisp humor and graces the whole production with caricatures of Yankee greats. Beyond the Ty Cobb and Joe Dugan look-alikes, though, is a breezy story of the staunchness of friendship with all its glories and unintended hurts. (Picture book. 7-9) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Ages 5^-8. Perhaps you don't remember Issy Archer, the last nine-year-old girl to play big-league baseball. Issy pitches for the 1923 Yankees, and her "soaking, sopping wet" spitball is unhittable. Issy's best buddy is Babe Ruth; they hang together after games, downing Fizzy Pink Soda and wolfing chili dogs. Despite her pitching talent, Issy dreams of being a ballet dancer, and eventually she retires from the game to dance ("When a girl turns 10, she needs to consider her future" ). Babe goes along with Issy's dancing, even joining her ballet class, but her retirement gives him a major-league bellyache. With the same sort of silly irreverence that drives fractured fairy tales, Shortt upends baseball history in uproarious fashion, slaying a few gender stereotypes along the way. His rambunctious illustrations are as delightful as his text: chunky, oversize figures dominate the colorful two-page spreads, cavorting about the ball field and the ballet studio with equal abandon. Even the youngest children will catch Shortt's contagious silliness: you don't need to know who Babe Ruth was to get a chortle out of the burly Bambino displaying his ballet technique before some befuddled sportswriters. Great fun for the picture-book crowd, young and old. Bill Ott