Tag: Juvenile Fic

Another gymnastics one, and yet another recovery-from-injury story. They’re all a little different though. This one is about a girl who sprains her wrist in a fall off her bicycle. She had just joined the high school gymnastics team as an eighth-grader, and is anxious about keeping up her skills level to help the team in an upcoming competition. She has to prove she’s good enough to stay on the team, but the injury is a huge setback. At first she doesn’t listen to the medical advice and tries to do things too soon, causing more wrist pain. Then she remembers to “take it easy”, wear her brace, do the stretching exercises. The coach admonishes her to practice what she can one-armed, visualize the rest, and be present to support her teammates. Some of them are making hurtful and snarky remarks, though. And she feels that her mother is pressuring her to work on piano practice instead, not supporting her gymnastics efforts. Her real passion is for gymnastics, she’s willing to give up piano entirely but then sits down one day to play when her wrist is mostly recovered (not yet strong enough for full gymnastics moves) and realizes she does like the music, how relaxing it is. Conflicted. Rather complex story for how short it was, and a good ending, if a little pat. Some of the way the kids talked to each other didn’t quite feel realistic, but I shrugged it off.

Borrowed from the public library.

Gymnastics story. Nadia had an ankle injury and was off the gymnastics floor for months. Now she’s back, but nervous about being behind the others, having lost so much practice time. Some of the other girls make mean comments that increase her anxiety, and even though her ankle is supposed to be fully healed, when she gets on the beam it starts hurting again. Is she overdoing it too soon? She really has to psyche her herself up to get back on the balance beam. The stress is getting to her until at the end of the story, something reminds her that she’s supposed to enjoy gymnastics. It’s about having fun, not only about winning in competition. The change in attitude makes it all better for her, and she is able to perform without the aches in her ankle coming recurring.

Borrowed from the public library.

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.

Yet another ghost writer. And another book about ice skating. I find I can relate to it a bit, even though ice skating has differences from roller skating, and I’m not anywhere near the level of skill to do the types of moves, leaps and spins these girls do in competition. This one is about a pair of sisters, twins. Different in personality though. Beatrice is compliant and happy to work on the traditional, classical figure skating dances with the rest of class. Maggie feels rebellious. She is starting to loose interest in skating, wants to do something else but not sure what. She dyes her hair on a whim, shocking and angering her mother, but very pleased with her new look. Everyone is surprised when their skating coach moves to another rink. The replacement coach has an attitude and style opposite anything classical or traditional. He encourages the girls to have fun, to skate what they intuitively feel in response to the music. Maggie loves it, enjoying herself on the ice like she hasn’t in a long time. She even starts teaching herself unique spins, inventing new ways of doing things. But their mother is upset, and starts making them get up super early in the mornings to drive to the other rink- an hour away- where the previous coach is now teaching. Maggie hates it. Beatrice is happy to be with their old coach. How can Maggie convince her mother to let her train with the new coach? to make her see that she’s an individual, not just like her sister.

I liked this one better than most of the others in the series. The storyline was a lot more interesting, and I appreciated Maggie’s need to skate in her own style. The only part I didn’t like was the ending. The mother seemed to change her attitude too abruptly. I could understand if she left it at being tired of the long drive, and acquised for that reason. Instead she flips everything, suddenly appreciating Maggie, accepting the hairstyle, happy to let her work with the new coach. That one part didn’t feel real.

Borrowed from the public library.

Eva does competitive figure skating. She loves being out on the ice. She’s working on a special number, skating to a song that has Chinese lyrics. Unable to understand them herself, but she knows when her grandmother is in the audience, it will mean something to her. Again, a lot of focus on the practice and work of learning a difficult move. And then the worst happens- Eva falls during a jump and sustains a concussion. She’s supposed to stay off the ice to recover of course, but can’t stand waiting, knowing that everyone else is still preparing for the upcoming performance. Tries to sneak back to the rink and skate anyways. I was appalled at first, but then I remembered: the character is young, and when I was a college student, I myself got a concussion (on the job) and felt fine the next day. Went back to work too soon (there were not nearly so many guidelines on recovery back then as today) and only made myself worse! So I actually could understand why she did that, having done something similar myself. Well, Eva not only has to just sit and watch everyone else skate (going through some motions on the sidelines herself to kind of keep in practice) but she overhears some other girls mocking the song she chose. Then comes up against a personal roadblock: when she’s cleared to skate again, she hesitates to make the same jump that caused her injury (very understandable). This fear, along with the insult of the girls’ teasing, makes her now unwilling to get back on the ice again (baffling her mother). But with some encouragement from her coach, some personal time bonding with her grandmother, and gentle reminders that everyone has to face fears and it’s okay to make mistakes, she’s finally able to perform again (and face down those girls who made fun of the song).

Borrowed from the public library.

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.