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SPORTS FICTION
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From: Karen Radtke <Kradtk>
Date: Wed, 06 Jan 1999 13:14:42 -0600
My daughter was a competing gymnast for 8 years and she loved the Silver Blade series, because it involved the training and competition of girls, but in a sport she was not as familiar with. She tried some of the gymnastic stuff, but it was never quite right. They used old terminologies, the training didn't ring true, etc. One of the few gymnastic books she did enjoy was Little Girls in Pretty Boxes by Joan Ryan, which she felt was fairly accurate. She's 15 and now into cross-country and track, but I still bring her books about kids who work hard and win, be it in sports or music or whatever. I find that kids in competitive sports enjoy books that involve competition on many levels. Two of my favorite sports books are Painting the Black by Carl Deuker and Slot Machines by Chris Lynch. Neither are the standard sports books, both illustrating more the psychological aspects of sports and competition than the physical aspects. Karen Radtke, Milwaukee Public Library
Here's a question to get the conversation going:
There is an accepted convention among publishers that kids who play
sports don't want to *read about* kids who play sports: They want to
be out there, doing. This has been borne out at a number of publishing
houses, where sports fiction (series especially) has been tried and
has failed.
There are exceptions, of course: baseball seems to have a loyal and
literate following; girls' sports fiction does pretty well, as long
as the focus is on "glamour" sports -- horseback riding, gymnastics,
ice skating; and many isolated titles, e.g. THE RUNNER (Voigt),
IRONMAN (Crutcher), S.O.R. LOSERS (Avi), are read for years.
So, teachers and librarians, is it true? Can we not consistently hook
sports-players on books about their sport? Are we going about it in
the wrong way? Or are we making a mistake to think that sports
players *want* sports books. Maybe after working out all morning,
practicing football all afternoon, nursing injuries all evening,
football players want to curl up with some great science fiction.
Received on Wed 06 Jan 1999 01:14:42 PM CST
Date: Wed, 06 Jan 1999 13:14:42 -0600
My daughter was a competing gymnast for 8 years and she loved the Silver Blade series, because it involved the training and competition of girls, but in a sport she was not as familiar with. She tried some of the gymnastic stuff, but it was never quite right. They used old terminologies, the training didn't ring true, etc. One of the few gymnastic books she did enjoy was Little Girls in Pretty Boxes by Joan Ryan, which she felt was fairly accurate. She's 15 and now into cross-country and track, but I still bring her books about kids who work hard and win, be it in sports or music or whatever. I find that kids in competitive sports enjoy books that involve competition on many levels. Two of my favorite sports books are Painting the Black by Carl Deuker and Slot Machines by Chris Lynch. Neither are the standard sports books, both illustrating more the psychological aspects of sports and competition than the physical aspects. Karen Radtke, Milwaukee Public Library
Here's a question to get the conversation going:
There is an accepted convention among publishers that kids who play
sports don't want to *read about* kids who play sports: They want to
be out there, doing. This has been borne out at a number of publishing
houses, where sports fiction (series especially) has been tried and
has failed.
There are exceptions, of course: baseball seems to have a loyal and
literate following; girls' sports fiction does pretty well, as long
as the focus is on "glamour" sports -- horseback riding, gymnastics,
ice skating; and many isolated titles, e.g. THE RUNNER (Voigt),
IRONMAN (Crutcher), S.O.R. LOSERS (Avi), are read for years.
So, teachers and librarians, is it true? Can we not consistently hook
sports-players on books about their sport? Are we going about it in
the wrong way? Or are we making a mistake to think that sports
players *want* sports books. Maybe after working out all morning,
practicing football all afternoon, nursing injuries all evening,
football players want to curl up with some great science fiction.
Received on Wed 06 Jan 1999 01:14:42 PM CST
