Thursday, December 23, 2010

Curveball: The Remarkable Story of Toni Stone

Curveball: The Remarkable Story of Toni Stone
By Martha Ackmann
Lawrence Hill Books, 2010. 274 pgs. Young Adult Nonfiction

Toni Stone was the first woman to play professional baseball in the Negro League in the early 1950s; here Ackmann chronicles her life and her early involvement with baseball, playing on any team she could possibly join, as well as her time in the Negro League, and how she managed to stay involved even after she left the Negro League.

I really wanted to like this book, but I can't actually say that I did like it. I think it's important to have books like this one, which is very informative about Toni Stone's story, as well as the struggle for a woman to play a professional sport and the discrimination black athlete faced. However, I didn't particularly care for the writing style; I thought it was rather dry, had too many footnotes and didn't ever really pull me into the book.

AE

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