Another gymnastics story. This is one of the simpler books in the series, so I wasn’t surprised that it was relatively short, and narrowly focused. A girl who is very good at gymnastics- has tons of blue medals and is top on her team- struggles to overcome an injury. She’s had minor injuries before, but this time falls due to a misstep when a sudden loud noise startles her on the beam. She sustains a concussion and the recovery time takes weeks. That’s tedious enough, but when she’s cleared to go back to the gym, she finds that her excitement for gymnastics has disappeared, and she’s afraid. She has flashbacks and nightmares of the incident. But is reluctant to tell her coach about it, because the coach had always urged them to put fear aside (or they weren’t cut out for the sport).
It isn’t until she falters during a competition- with the pressure of all eyes on her- that the coach realizes something serious is wrong, pulls her aside, and then gets counseling for the whole team. The coach brings in a specialist who talks to the girls about how injury can cause trauma that affects your ability to perform again, and some suggestions on how to work through it. The main character feels uncomfortable at first, afraid that’s she’s being singled out, but then notices that her teammates are nodding their heads and paying attention to the counselor, not looking at her. She realizes that they all need the reassurance that injuries and fears can be overcome- and then she gets help to work up a plan to approach the balance beam again gradually, working at each skill and part of her routine one piece at a time until she has her confidence back. I liked this one, it was easy to read, the narrative flowed well and felt relevant (not dumbed down). The illustrations looked a bit awkward to me- all the people had overly long legs and short torsos- but I guess that’s just the style. It also felt like the story ended very abruptly, but that didn’t bother me too much.
Borrowed from the public library.
