When Willard Met Babe Ruth [Library Binding]

Donald Hall (Author), Barry Moser (Author, Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1996 | Age Level: 8 and up | Grade Level: 3 and up

Enjoying the annual baseball game between the married and single men in his community, twelve-year-old Willard Babson assists talented baseball star Babe Ruth when the latter's car accidentally slides into a ditch.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A chance meeting between a boy and his idol in 1917 leads to an even more exciting encounter years later, as Willard witnesses Ruth's 709th home run. Ages 7-10.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal

Grade 3-5?Hall pens a gentle tale of a time when both life and baseball were less complicated than they are today. In 1917, while 12-year-old Willard and his father are tending the sheep and geese near their New Hampshire farm, a roaring automobile slides into a ditch while trying to stop. The boy and his father use their ox team to pull out the roadster of the Boston Red Sox star pitcher Babe Ruth. Willard receives Ruth's glove as a gesture of appreciation and is forever a fan of the pitcher soon-to-turn slugger. The story follows the lives of Ruth on the ballfield and Willard as he matures into a man and raises a family. He meets the legendary star one last time in 1935 (he had a second meeting with him at Fenway Park in 1918), when he takes his daughter to Braves Field to watch the Bambino in one of his last games. Moser's graceful watercolor paintings are featured throughout the book and are similar in style to his works in Richard Wilbur's A Game of Catch (Harcourt, 1994) and Willie Morris's A Prayer for the Opening of the Little League Season (Harcourt, 1995). Shelve this title with the chapter books where it's most likely to get in the hands of its intended audience.?Tom S. Hurlburt, La Crosse Public Library, WI
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 8 and up
  
• Library Binding: 41 pages
• Publisher: Browndeer Pr; 1st edition (March 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0152002731
• ISBN-13: 978-0152002732
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #634,894 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A REAL Field of Dreams: Excellent Baseball Story, October 30, 2000

By 

M. Allen Greenbaum (California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: When Willard Met Babe Ruth (Library Binding)

This book is as leisurely paced as a day at the ballpark, with the same quality of time passing yet standing still. It traces three generations of baseball fans, growing with the game, and their encounters with George Herman "Babe" Ruth. Baseball changes more slowly than the events around it: war, the Depression, marriage, birth, technology.

The love of baseball is transmitted from father to son to granddaughter, and it is in that slow but certain transmission that the author conveys the beauty of the game. No other sport treasures its history so much. No other major sport is so unconstrained (at least, theoretically) by time.

Donald Hall has written an unhurried look at baseball, growth, and decline. We meet the young Babe Ruth as a star southpaw for the Red Sox, then follow (with the New Hampshire family portrayed here) repeated years of father-son baseball games, rooting for the Babe as he keeps breaking his own home run record, and then, briefly, the Babe's last, uncompleted year in baseball. Between the lines we see the dimmest outlines of a flawed man. The book is both a sentimental evocation of a New England family's enchantment with baseball, and an unstudied meditation on the passage of time.

Of course, the above is from an adult perspective. Elementary school kids (and older) will enjoy the depiction of times past, the two encounters with the young and the older Babe, and, most of all, the outstanding illustrations by Barry Moser. Like baseball, it can seem a little slow, but if you have the time and the inclination, the book will envelop you like an old familiar glove.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A HOMER FOR YOUNG READERS, February 27, 2004

By 

Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: When Willard Met Babe Ruth (School & Library Binding)

Master woodcutter Moser's brilliantly conceived watercolors recreate rural New Hampshire in 1917. It was a simpler time, when there was a baseball game between the single men and the married men. For young Willard Babson the game and ice cream were the highlights of his day.

When Willard and his father come upon a roadster that had slid into a ditch, the boy was amazed to find the driver was the most outstanding left-hander in baseball - Babe Ruth.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book for kids, January 21, 2009

By 

L. P. Foster (Columbus, OH) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: When Willard Met Babe Ruth (Paperback)

My 8 year old son, who normally hates to sit down and read, actually sat down and read this book cover to cover in one sitting. He is a big Babe Ruth fan, which I'm sure helped, but I would definitely recommend this book for any baseball fan.