Baseball Read-alouds with a Bit of Black History

On our weekly trip to the library, StringBean decided that she LOVES baseball and wanted to get some baseball books. Here are the pretty near perfect picture books we found:

• Here's one for every almost-Tom boy on the list. The Babe Ruth Ballet School by Tim Shortt is about a little girl who pitches for the Yankees and is best friends with Babe Ruth. She throws an awesome spitball, but what she really dreams of doing is ballet. The conclusion is VERY cute.
• Peter Mandel's Say Hey! A song of Willie Mays is a bit of biography about the amazing black ball player who played in New York and San Francisco (he was playing for the SF Giants when I was little). It's in verse with the repeating line, "Say hey, Willie. Say hey," which my littles REALLY enjoyed shouting out.
  
• For a wonderful story about the start of MLB's desegregation, look no further than Peter Golenbock's book Teammates about Jackie Robinson and PeeWee Reese. Jackie braved the bigots to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers and PeeWee Reese makes a stand in defense of this first black Major League ball player. This is a wonderful read with lots of rabbit trails.
• This next book is one I picked out especially for String Bean. She has been hounding me about learning the violin -- I keep telling her, "when we're in Austria, we'll get a teacher for you." This story, The Bat Boy and His Violin by Gavin Curtis is a wonderful book that describes life in the Negro League (before MLB desegregation) as well as the message that following your dream may be the better solution to following the dream your parents have for you.
  

So take these out to the ballgame this weekend and read!