Dirt on Their Skirts: The Story of the Young Women who Won the World Championship

"During WWII, as men went overseas, women assumed many of their jobs; Rappaport and Callan enthusiastically invent a fictional witness to that historical moment when baseball, too, was taken over by women. Two teams from the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, the Rockford Peaches and the Racine Belles, are vying for the 1946 championship. It’s the bottom of the 14th and the score is 0-0. In the stands, Margaret’s father, having just returned from fighting overseas, has joined his family for this final game of the season. As the last inning unfolds, Margaret, shouting and cheering, can hardly wait until she’s old enough to join this group of talented women. While the Belles joyously celebrate their victory on the show more field, Margaret proudly recalls her mother’s words, “You do have to be tough to play baseball in a skirt.” The text benefits from Lewis’s full-page watercolors, which range from the antic and expressive to exquisitely solemn with tension. Curiously missing from the historical notes is any reference to the popular film, A League of Their Own, which first revived interest in the league. That doesn’t detract from a book that reminds readers not to restrict their dreams on the basis of gender. (Picture book. 4-8)" www.kirkusreviews.com show less

I Love the inspiration in this book for young girls to do whatever they set their minds to. Some view baseball as a male sport but these girls went out there and showed them girls can go anything boys can do. I think that is a huge theme in the book as well. Girls can make big things happen.I love how the author provided images of the women who played in the 40s championship.The illustration throughout the book was wonderful i liked the watercolor look the illustrator went with.

I hate to say, since I sincerely enjoyed the book and I love the work of both the author and illustrator, but the entire time I read this book all I could think about was "A League of Their Own". The uniforms, the teams, the players, the pictures of the real players, everything about this book reminded me of the climactic scene of that movie. In fact, I was looking for a Dotty and Kit to to face off. I suppose it was a pretty well done movie to invoke that response. But I like the book all the same. I suppose that this book is really targeted at an audience that had never seen or heard of "A League of Their Own". It's a very well done book, like most books Doreen Rappaport or E.B. Lewis are involved in.

A short but exciting book about women's professional baseball in the 1940's. The league was started by Philip Wrigley during World War 2 to sustain public interest in the sport of baseball while many men, including professional baseball players, were overseas fighting. The book is all excitement and victory; it has an uplifting tone and many interesting action verbs and stimulating adjectives. A great book for teachers to use for vocabulary building and as an example of descriptive writing. I'm not a huge baseball fan, but it was fun to read about a girl with scabby knees who is.

This is by far the best book I have read this semester. It was a story based on a true story of the first women’s baseball team, while the men were sent off to the war. I loved the history aspect that the author brought to the table. The illustrations were the best I have seen in my picture book collection. The other thing I found interesting with this book was the inside flaps of the book. There were historical articles and background information given about the historical events. They also included real pictures from that time period of the people mentioned in the story. It was told in third person as an actual story of a girl admiring to be one of the women baseball players. It made the story more believable and makes it both show more informational but also enjoyable. The plot told the game of baseball in sequential order in a very organized and accurate way. The sports terms were spot on in the usage in the story. The bigger picture is to inform people of a historic event and an important event in women’s sports history. show less

Margaret and her family are at a baseball World Series game in 1946 and the players are women from the All American Girls Professional Baseball League. I had watched A League of Their Own as a child and it was really neat to see that story presented in a picture book. This story took place in a post World War 2 America and Margaret is illustrated with a peace sign, but since its WW2 the V stands for Victory and not peace. I thought that was an interesting to connect history through an illustration.

It is the World Championship of 1946. The Belles, Margaret's favorite team are playing the Rockford Peaches. No one has scored yet and it is in the bottom of the 14th inning. Margaret and her family are on the edges of their seats in the stands, waiting for the Belles to score. Margaret is cheering for her favorite player, Sophie Kurys, to bring the game home for their hometown. Margaret dreams of becoming a baseball player like Sophie who does not seem to mind sores on her knees and a little dirt on her skirt. It is in the time in America when women did not wear pants too often, not even to sports. Margaret does not mind that, just as long as she becomes a field-hustling, dirt-slinging, skirt-wearing second baser like Sophie Kurys.