Babe Didrikson Zaharias: The Making of a Champion

Uplifting sports bio for tweens and up.

Author: Russell Freedman Illustrator: none Pages: 192 Publisher: Clarion Books Published Date: 01/01/1999 Genre: Non-Fiction - Biography HC Price: $19.95 Publisher's Recommended Reading Level: 9-12 Read Aloud: 10 Read Alone: 11

Common Sense Note

Parents need to know that Babe struggles with prejudice against women. Written with verve that matches Babe's personality, this true story will encourage young readers, especially those interested in sports.

Families who read this book could discuss how Babe's discipline helped her win at a time when women were not accepted in sports. Why were woment treated this way? How have things changed? Do they need to change more?

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Common Sense Review

Reviewed By: Monica Wyatt

This uplifting biography of the one of the twentieth century's greatest female athletes will inspire many kids who love sports and any form of competition. The book sparkles as it lets Babe's exuberant personality shine through. Plenty of pictures and quotations help the text come alive for young readers. A must-read, especially for athletic teens.

Girls who still struggle for acceptance as athletes will be amazed by this true story of a woman so athletically gifted and so determined to win that she blazed a way through prejudices far worse than girls experience today. During the early part of the twentieth century, women simply weren't accepted in sports. The International Olympic Committee came close to banning women from the Games..

But Babe wasn't about to be scared off. She was so good she became a local celebrity even before her Olympic triumph. She didn't rely on her amazing natural talent, but spent hours practicing every sport she played, often until her hands bled and darkness forced her to stop. During her early years she also worked in factories and offices to help support her family.

Babe wasn't just a track-and-field star or just a golfing star, and she wasn't modest. She made her name first in basketball, and later in bowling, while she was fighting to play golf. At the Olympics, she bragged, "I came out here to beat everybody in sight and that's just what I'm going to do ... . Sure, I can do anything!"

Freedman keeps the book moving with frequent smart-aleck quotations from Babe and from those who knew her. He inserts sports statistics directly into the narrative, and includes many black-and-white photographs, along with an extensive index, background sources, and an afterword. It all adds up to a book nearly as lively as Babe herself.

From The Book

After a bad shot, Babe was known to shout, "Man! All that work and the baby's dead!" The gallery would howl, her opponents would gasp, and Babe, beaming, would swagger on. When reporters asked her how she was able to hit the ball so far, she replied, "I just loosen my girdle and let it fly!"

Plot Summary:

From childhood on, Mildred "Babe" Didrikson demonstrated an incredible ability in sports. She was so good at baseball that she played with boys, who chose her first to be on their teams.

She left school early to take a job as a clerk for a company that sponsored her in athletics. In 1932, she competed as the only member of her team, and singlehandly won a track-and-field tournament that led her to the Los Angeles Olympics.

There she won two gold medals and a silver medal, and she became a national celebrity. Babe traveled to play exhibition sports, making good money to support her family. Finally she settled on golf, where she prevailed against ladies who didn't want a working-class woman competing in their tournaments. After marrying George Zaharias, a famous wrestler, she astounded the golf world by winning tournaments for a decade, until she died of cancer in 1956.