Review of "Babe Ruth: Baseball Boy," by Guernsey Van Riper Jr.

 Review of

Babe Ruth: Baseball Boy, by Guernsey Van Riper Jr.

Five out of five stars

Unusual biography of this transformative star

 I first read this book when I was in elementary school. Fortunately, the local library had a large set of books in the Childhood Biography series. What makes this book more interesting than other biographies of Babe Ruth is the concentration on his childhood. The book is 192 pages and the first mention of his actions as a major league player is not until page 160.

 The focus on the childhood of George Ruth makes this a very attractive book for children, independent of whether they are into baseball or not. Ruth is depicted as a typical troubled child getting into the kind of difficulties that unsupervised children are prone to encounter. In so many ways, this makes it much easier to relate to Ruth. Many boys will read this book and conclude that as a child, Ruth was just like them.

 Although this book was published in 1959, it has worn well over the years. Sixty years later, boys are still boys and without parental supervision, they will get into mischief. Ruth is another example of a boy in trouble that manages to find his passion and become a transformative figure in that field.