Wonder Girl

April 11, 2011
Van Natta (First off the Tee) writes in this engaging biography that Babe Didrikson pointed to a javelin the first time she visited a track and field practice and asked, "What's that?" Only a few months later, the young basketball star from a blue-collar family of Norwegian immigrants in Beaumont, Tex., set a world record for the javelin throw. Two years later in the 1932 Olympics, she won a gold medal in the javelin and the hurdles and a silver in the high jump. A bet between sportswriters in the press box about her ability to golf recruited her to the game the very next day, launching her on a path to becoming the dominant player of her era. She had an amazing capacity to play any sport astonishingly well with a feisty and audacious confidence. Also fascinating was her marriage to professional wrestler and promoter George Zaharias and her struggle with cancer. After major surgery, she won two LPGA tournaments, including the U.S. Open, before the disease took her life at the age of 45 in 1956. While there is little analysis of Didrikson Zaharias's cultural role as a woman in the sporting world, Van Natta marvelously narrates the forgotten life of the "greatest all-around athlete of all time," a story that every American sport fan should relish.

April 15, 2011

An enthusiastic, sympathetic biography of the incomparable all-around sports champion.

There is no lack of research into Mildred Ella "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias' life (1911–1956) most notably Susan E. Cayleff's 1995 biography Babe, but Van Natta's work spirits the reader away on this fairy-tale story with grace, humor and an occasional need to set the record straight. In fact, Babe was born in 1911, though she publicly shaved a few years off her age. One of seven children born to Norwegian immigrants in East Texas, Babe was a tomboy and a daredevil, catching the eye of Melvorne J. McCombs, the scout for the Employers Casualty Insurance Company in Dallas, which needed a scorer for their women's basketball team to win the upcoming Amateur Athletic Union championship, in February 1930. Hired to work at the company and star on the team, Babe essentially dropped out of high school, gaining with each victory for her team admiring coverage in the press and a devoted following. Confining herself to one sport was impossible for Babe, because of her extraordinary talent, and she was braggart, habitually employing hot-air tactics to psych out her opponents. After winning a coveted spot on the 1932 Olympic team by dominating all eight events, she won two gold medals (javelin, hurdles) and a silver (high jump), setting world records, then translated her publicity into high earnings afterward, which got her barred for three years from amateur golf, the next sport she intended to master. Babe had a power swing, embarking on a winning streak of American and British titles that rarely let up until her untimely death by cancer in 1956. She and her pro-wrestler husband, George Zaharias, started the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA), which galvanized the game for women.

An enormously inspiring life story for a new generation of female achievers.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

June 15, 2011

Long before she took up golf, Babe Didrikson Zaharias (1911-56) had established her reputation in track and field, basketball, baseball, and bragging. Before the 1932 Olympics, she told a rival, "Ah'm gonna whup yo' tomorrow," and then did. A reporter's dream, she parlayed her talent into a career in vaudeville and athletic exhibitions, before becoming a professional golfer. Journalist Van Natta (national correspondent, New York Times; First Off the Tee: Presidential Hackers, Duffers and Cheaters from Taft to Bush) has written the first biography of Zaharias for adults since Susan Cayleff's Babe (1995). While there are no new startling revelations, this biography takes readers more intimately into Zaharias's daily life, from her tomboy upbringing in Beaumont, TX, to her early death. Stricken with cancer, she approached her condition with unprecedented candor, spreading good cheer and even winning a golf tournament just months after surgery. VERDICT Bright and engaging, this biography brings Zaharias, her amazing accomplishments, and brash statements to life as no other book has. Fans and students of women's history and sports history will savor it. (Photographs not seen.)--Kathy Ruffle, Coll. of New Caledonia Lib., Prince George, B.C.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2011
Pulitzer Prizewinning New York Times correspondent Van Natta turns in a workmanlike biography of Zaharias, one of Americas most incandescent athletes. In her day, she was perhaps the countrys premier female basketball player. She broke four world records and won two gold medals and a silver in track and field at the 1932 Olympic Games. She helped found the LPGA, winning the 1954 U.S. Womens Open by 12 strokes (while recovering from cancer surgery), among other feats. Van Natta captures Zaharias singular athletic gifts, her ferocious competitiveness (accompanied by trash-talking), her bittersweet marriage to pro wrestler George Zaharias, the challenges to her gender that she faced from the press, and her public battle with the colon cancer that killed her. While it lacks the thoughtful analysis of Susan Cayleffs Babe (1995) and its attendant focus on Zaharias homosexuality, this biography will generally bring todays readers up to speed on a mainstay on lists of the top 10 athletes of the past century.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)