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Sports Fiction and Sports Biographies
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From: Toni Buzzeo <buzzeocyll>
Date: Sat, 09 Jan 1999 08:53:51 -0500
I'll put two hats on here as I respond to this great discussion of sports books for kids. As an elementary school library media specialist, I am in the position of purchasing and recommending books to kids, many of them sports fans, regularly. I'd agree that sports fiction enjoys less popularity among the most avid sports fans than non-fiction, both biographies and how-to/skills books. However, I also have teachers who assign one fiction book a month, by genre, and one of those genres is often Sports Fiction. So, our ever-growing collection of sports fiction does get a workout. Brenda, the series fiction is much less popular, even in these instances, than individual titles such as THE GOALIE by Shreve and CRASH by Spinelli and I owe that to the fact that kids do want depth of character dished up with their sports.
Like Ed, though, I've had students sorely disappointed when they self-select a fiction book they expect to be "about" their favorite sport because of cover art only to find that the sport itself is quite peripheral. They are looking for the sport and the play to be integral to the plot. Brenda, I'd say that's what it takes to really hook the sports fan with fiction.
I'm with Nina in regards to the purchase of hardcover sports biographies. I have kids who read them exclusively. In some seasons, those sport bios generate the highest statistics in our biography section. And yes, when we are in the midst of research projects, there are some low-performing kids who will become completely engaged if they are directed to the published biography of a sports hero. (In fact, the team of third grade teachers I am working with this month and I had just this discussion on Thursday.) The sports biography is a starting place that will be followed by a search for more current information in periodicals such as SI FOR KIDS and BIOGRAPHY TODAY as well as on the Internet.
Briefly, in my hat as the mom of an avid 16 year old male reader, Chris, I think he finds that a strong sports backdrop, as in WRESTLING STURBRIDGE by Rich Wallace and Chris Crutcher's novels, lends authenticity to male character development. Chris is a varsity runner and recreational skier, and not much of sports fan otherwise, but eagerly reads YA fiction with mature characters whose lives revolve around sports. On the other hand, Chris' mom hand?eds YA fiction to him from her review piles, so he may not be representative of the average teen!
Toni Buzzeo, MA, MLIS Longfellow School Library Media Center Portland, ME
Received on Sat 09 Jan 1999 07:53:51 AM CST
Date: Sat, 09 Jan 1999 08:53:51 -0500
I'll put two hats on here as I respond to this great discussion of sports books for kids. As an elementary school library media specialist, I am in the position of purchasing and recommending books to kids, many of them sports fans, regularly. I'd agree that sports fiction enjoys less popularity among the most avid sports fans than non-fiction, both biographies and how-to/skills books. However, I also have teachers who assign one fiction book a month, by genre, and one of those genres is often Sports Fiction. So, our ever-growing collection of sports fiction does get a workout. Brenda, the series fiction is much less popular, even in these instances, than individual titles such as THE GOALIE by Shreve and CRASH by Spinelli and I owe that to the fact that kids do want depth of character dished up with their sports.
Like Ed, though, I've had students sorely disappointed when they self-select a fiction book they expect to be "about" their favorite sport because of cover art only to find that the sport itself is quite peripheral. They are looking for the sport and the play to be integral to the plot. Brenda, I'd say that's what it takes to really hook the sports fan with fiction.
I'm with Nina in regards to the purchase of hardcover sports biographies. I have kids who read them exclusively. In some seasons, those sport bios generate the highest statistics in our biography section. And yes, when we are in the midst of research projects, there are some low-performing kids who will become completely engaged if they are directed to the published biography of a sports hero. (In fact, the team of third grade teachers I am working with this month and I had just this discussion on Thursday.) The sports biography is a starting place that will be followed by a search for more current information in periodicals such as SI FOR KIDS and BIOGRAPHY TODAY as well as on the Internet.
Briefly, in my hat as the mom of an avid 16 year old male reader, Chris, I think he finds that a strong sports backdrop, as in WRESTLING STURBRIDGE by Rich Wallace and Chris Crutcher's novels, lends authenticity to male character development. Chris is a varsity runner and recreational skier, and not much of sports fan otherwise, but eagerly reads YA fiction with mature characters whose lives revolve around sports. On the other hand, Chris' mom hand?eds YA fiction to him from her review piles, so he may not be representative of the average teen!
Toni Buzzeo, MA, MLIS Longfellow School Library Media Center Portland, ME
Received on Sat 09 Jan 1999 07:53:51 AM CST
