This one was better than the last. Read it in two sittings, and actually enjoyed it some. About a girl on a school gymnastics team. She’s the captain, but seems to think that means she should be the best gymnast. She’s frustrated when the coach gives more one-on-one help to other girls on the team, and disgruntled at praise they receive, feeling that she mostly gets criticism. When the team is going to be (briefly) featured on a local television spot, she thinks this is her moment to shine! But as team captain, she was supposed to talk about what it’s like to lead the team, not to point out how hard she works and how flawlessly she performed. And everybody noticed. Aside from all this, she’s been struggling to do a certain difficult move, especially with the pressure of others watching. It’s mainly all about how her jealousy is starting to create division among the teammates, but she realizes what she’s been doing in time, makes apologies, and efforts to show more support to the other girls, instead of expecting a spotlight on herself. A lot about how they practice, and how hard they all work. Some of the terms and names for moves were familiar to me, from watching gymnastics competitions (my oldest was in gymnastics when younger). Other things I really had no clue and the descriptions didn’t really help me picture things. But that could just be me. Like the other books in this series, there’s questions in the back to help the reader do some critical thinking, a short glossary of the more difficult words, and a bit of history on the sport. That page disappointed me. It didn’t have any of the kinds of things I would find interesting to read about a sport, but instead was all stats on some famous Olympic teams and their names and when their coaches retired, etc. Not a big deal, though.
Borrowed from the public library.