A review by erinepeterson
Diamond Ruby by Joseph Wallace

4.0

It happened to be right around the 4th of July that I picked this book up. I wanted to read something that optimized the American traditions, something that was truly patriotic, and I found that in Diamond Ruby. Ruby is a girl who has been thrown into the role of sole provider for her family after a tragic set of events. This 17 year old girl is now responsible for her alcoholic brother and his two young daughters in the tumultuous 1920's. This is a story of the strength of a woman who defied the times and the opinions of others to succeed in a man's sport- baseball. Ruby takes us from a small booth on Coney Island, to the house that Ruth built in her rise to fame. At first I thought that, though the story is enjoyable, the premise was a little far fetched, but I started googling around and found out that in fact, there was a 17 year old girl who struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in an exhibition game in 1931. Ruby's story is loosely based around that historical incident. Pretty cool.