This is very interesting in that I have not read a lot of books on this subject. It really made me think about this period in history and what these young ladies went through to follow their dreams. The bonus was a college education which none of them would have had access to otherwise. The book takes you through each girl's story of how they were chosen and why they pursued this dream. Most were from poor farm families born in the dust bowl and had struggled along with their parents to scrape a living out of very poor soil. They watched this means of feeding their families blow away in the wind day by day until there was nothing left. Getting this college education while pursuing their dream of playing on an all-star basketball team made this an interesting read.

At the height of the Great Depression, Sam Babb, the charismatic basketball coach of tiny Oklahoma Presbyterian College, began dreaming. Like so many others, he wanted a reason to have hope. Traveling from farm to farm, he recruited talented, hardworking young women and offered them a chance at a better life: a free college education if they would come play for his basketball team, the Cardinals.
Despite their fears of leaving home and the sacrifices faced by their families, the women followed Babb and his dream. He shaped the Cardinals into a formidable team, and something extraordinary began to happen: with passion for the game and heartfelt loyalty to one another and their coach, they won every game.
Combining exhilarating sports writing and exceptional storytelling, Dust Bowl Girls conveys the intensity of an improbable journey to an epic showdown with the prevailing national champions, helmed by the legendary Babe Didrikson. And it captures a moment in American sports history when a visionary coach helped his young athletes achieve more than a winning season. (via Goodreads)

I received an eARC from the publisher,Algonquin Books, and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Confession: I’m really bad at basketball. The last time I played it was in 8th grade, and I accidentally broke the new kid’s nose. Seriously. It was terrible. I’m generally uncoordinated, but that was a feat of terrible proportions that surprised even my gym teacher. I wasn’t allowed to touch the ball anymore during class, which wasn’t such a punishment for me!

However, I’m always interested in other women doing great things – and the Dust Bowl Girls absolutely met that standard, so I knew I had to read the book.

The Dust Bowl Girls was a strange mix of histories – some of the stories were clearly recollections from the women featured in the book, some of them were vaguely researched histories of the university and the Chickasaw and Chocktaw tribes that live near the college. It also got very intricate with the different rules for women’s basketball, which was still really interesting for me, considering I don’t even remember the rules for men’s basketball.

There was some great research done for this book, and some really good writing. However, I thought the book would have done well to have split this more into separate sections – these girls’ stories, and the story of basketball in general.

The story really got bogged down for me in the constant switching, and I had a hard time keeping my interest up throughout the novel, which was disappointing for me.

For that reason, this is a three star read for me. I think if you had more interest in basketball’s inner workings, it might be more your thing. You can pick up a copy through Amazon, Indiebound or your other favorite bookseller!

three stars

~ Lydia Ellen Reeder is the grandniece of Sam Babb, the extraordinary basketball coach featured in Dust Bowl Girls. She spent over two years conducting research for the book and also wrote and narrated a short film about the Cardinal basketball team, currently on view at the Oklahoma Historical Society website.

As a former associate editor at Whole Life Times in Los Angeles and Delicious Magazine in Boulder, Colorado, Reeder has worked for many years as a copywriter and editor on behalf of corporate and organizational clients and most recently developed e-learning for a national nursing association. She lives in Denver with her husband and enjoys hiking in the mountains of Colorado. Dust Bowl Girls is her first book.

This was a little more detailed than what I thought it would be. I assumed it would be about basketball and a basketball team. However, it got into the history of Oklahoma and the Trail of Tears and establishments and settlements. It had a lot of names and how much was paid for what. This would be a great book for someone who is really interested in the history of Oklahoma.

However, that was not the case for me. I had just wanted to read about this basketball team. What I was able to read about them and Coach Babb was very interesting, but having to get through all the other stuff was just not worth it.

I think perhaps a better title would land this book on the shelves of people who would be more interested. I could tell the author did a lot of research, this just wasn't what I was looking for.

Thanks Algonquin Books and Net Galley for providing me with a free e-galley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a very well written book about a subject that really interests me, the rise of sports and physical education of young women in the relatively early part of the 20th century. To be specific this book centers around a team of young women basketball players in the eary 30's who were given the opportunity (unheard of!) to go to University and become a part of that team. They were carefully scouted by the team captain, Sam Babb who trained them fiercely (and all the while they had to keep up with their studies). It's one of these David and Goliath stories, of the young, inexperienced team of great athletes and what they had to do to overcome the odds against them.

The only reason that I didn't give it a 5 star is because there were parts that went on too long about the intracacies of the women's sports world at that time. I did enjoy reading how so many of the so-called athletic organizations really tried to prohibit the women from engaging too severely in sports, thinking that women were such dainty flowers they could only hurt themselves. But is was difficult keeping up with all the different women's organizations and what they all were about and how they interacted or didn't. There were many pages that could have been cut or summarized.

What I did loved are all of the photographs. Maybe because I am also a photographer, but I hate when someone writes a book about real people and we cannot see photos of them. In this book, there were photos ini spades and I liked the way they were distributed throughout the book, so that the photos shown matched that part of the story.

One small complaint: in writing about Babe Didrickson, the author neglected to ever say that she became the acclaimed Babe Didrickson Zaharias who was named arguably the best woman athlete ever.

I'm not a big sports fan, but I do enjoy an occasional story about outstanding players or teams. I really liked "A League of Their Own," and this book seemed to be a similar type of story. If you have never heard of the OPC Cardinals, you are not alone. But they deserve to have their story shared, and for others to look at them as a source of inspiration. Just the idea that a bunch of farm girls attending a small, Christian college during the Dust Bowl years could actually win a national playoff is amazing! Then, when you take into account the fact that they were playing the reigning champions, who were led by the legendary Babe Didrikson, their success moves into the realm of unbelievable. But they did it, and this book clearly details their time working toward the championship.

Author Lydia Reeder is actually the great niece of the Cardinals coach from that historic time, Mr. Sam Babb. She uses details pulled from family scrapbooks (her own and those of players), newspaper and magazine clippings, interviews, and the accounts maintained by the team's unofficial historian. She manages to do several things at once - paint a backdrop of the economic climate in Oklahoma during the early 1930s, show each of the girls with her own individuality, and build the interest and excitement of readers as the team approaches the playoff. Even those who do not normally read sports can still have a wonderful time reading about the "Cards" and their visionary coach.

Great for historical perspective, sports history and development of girls' basketball, and female role models. Highly recommended.