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Nancy Keane's | Booktalks -- Quick and Simple | |
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Tavares, Matt.
BECOMING BABE RUTH Somerville, MA : Candlewick Press, 2013 IL K-3, RL 4.1 ISBN 0763656461 (2 booktalks) |
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Booktalk #1 By the time George was seven years old he was getting into lots of trouble and not going to school like he should. His parents were struggling just to keep the family fed and housed and didn’t have a lot of time left over to make sure he stayed on the straight and narrow so they took him to the Saint Mary’s Industrial School for Boys. The school, run by a group of Brothers from the Catholic church, was very strict. At the school George went to classes but he also got to play baseball nearly every day and he was good. So good that one of the teachers, Brother Matthias, took a special interest in his abilities and coached him in the game and even got a baseball scout to watch him play. George was signed onto a professional team immediately and soon became known to the world as Babe Ruth. But he never forgot his old school and often helped them financially and visited the boys living there. George starts out small but he becomes a legend. (South Carolina Picture Book Award, 2015. Prepared by: Jill Altman, Saluda Primary School, jaltman@saludaschools.org) Booktalk #2 “The Batterer”. “The Colossus”. “The Sultan of Swat”. All these nicknames were given to one of the greatest baseball players of all time, Babe Ruth. Everyone knows why Babe Ruth was famous- he hit 714 home runs in his career. But do you know how he got his start? When George Ruth was seven years old he was getting into trouble on the streets of Baltimore. Unable to control him, his parents decided to send him to boarding school, The Saint Mary’s Industrial School for Boys. The 800 boys who lived there felt like inmates in a prison because of the strict schedule and many rules. At first George hated it, but he gradually adjusted to the rules. The one thing he loved about St. Mary’s was that the boys played baseball every day. Soon George excelled at baseball. He practiced for hours under the coaching of Brother Matthias, one of the teachers at the school. In 1914 George was offered a contract with the Baltimore Orioles, where he earned the nickname Babe. The rest, as they say, is history. As the highest paid and most famous baseball player of his time he never forgot his humble beginnings at St. Mary’s School. Read this book to learn the details of Babe’s start at St. Mary’s and his amazing life as a baseball player. (Pennsylvania Young Reader's Choice Award, 2015) |
| SUBJECTS: Ruth, Babe, 1895-1948. St. Mary's Industrial School (Baltimore, Md.) Baseball players. Picture books for children. |
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