New Booklist on BookGuide: Summer Olympics Reading List

 

Have you been watching the Tokyo Summer Olympics sports coverage on TV and online for the past two weeks? Are you sorry to see it come to an end with tonight's Summer Olympics Closing Ceremonies?

If so, then you'll want to check out the recent Summer Olympics Reading List addition to the libraries BookGuide readers advisory resources. Carrie R., from the Bennett Martin Public Library downtown, offers up some recommended reading suggestions for the Olympics in general -- both the Ancient Olympics and the Modern Olympics -- and then also provides reading/viewing suggestions for library materials available for each of the Summer Olympics sport categories -- from swimming and gymnastics and athletics (track & field) to field hockey, BMX, beach volleyball, triathlon, fencing, table tennis and new additions this year including surfing, skateboarding, sport climbing and more. Each category will feature books and DVDs about the individual sports, as well as biographies of some of the prominent athletes known for each sport.

So...hold off your Olympics withdrawal symptoms with some of these great reads!

Check out this new booklist on BookGuide at the following link:

Summer Olympics Reading List

DVD Review: Seabiscuit

Seabiscuit
(DVD Seabiscuit)

I have always been a fan of movies about horses, so it is no wonder that I would find this movie so appealing. This movie is based on the true story of Seabiscuit, an American racehorse who became a symbol of hope to many Americans during the Great Depression. Although small, Seabiscuit beat the odds to become one of the greatest racehorses in America during the late 1930s and early 1940s. The story is about Seabiscuit’s jockey, trainer and owner. The jockey is played by Tobey Maguire of Spiderman fame who gives an incredible performance as Red Pollard. Also notable in this production is Jeff Bridges as owner Charles Howard and author David McCullough as the narrator.

 

This is well worth seeing.

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try War Horse, Secretariat or Black Beauty] [Also available in traditional print format.]

[ Internet Movie Database entry for this film ]

 

Recommended by Kim J.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you watched this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Book Review: She Persist in Sports: American Olympians Who Changed the Game by Chelsea Clinton and Alexandra Boiger

She Persisted in Sports: American Olympians Who Changed the Game
by Chelsea Clinton and Alexandra Boiger (j796.48 Cli)

In researching books about they Olympics to help a co-worker with her “Summer Olympics Reading List” booklist, I stumbled across this third volume in the series of short picture book biographies of significant women, written by Chelsea Clinton and illustrated by Alexandra Boiger.

 

In their first two volumes, this creative team covered She Persisted: 13 American Women Who Changed the World, and She Persisted Around the World: 13 Women Who Changed History. In this latest (2019) entry, they offer up 13 more inspirational real-life stories, though three of those feature pairs (siblings or teammates) instead of just individuals. In keeping with their “She Persisted…” theme, all of the women in their stories were actively discouraged from pursuing their athletic dreams, but through persistence, perseverance and dogged stubbornness, all the profiled individuals surpassed athletic milestones previously thought unattainable or somehow inappropriate.

 

Individuals (or teams) profiled here include: Margaret Ives Abbott (golf), Gertrude Ederle (swimming), Mildred “Babe” Didrickson Zaharias (multiple sports), Wilma Rudolph (track and field), Jean Driscoll (wheelchair sports and Paralympian), Mia Hamm (and the USA women’s soccer teams of 1996 and later), Kristi Yamaguchi (figure skating), Venus and Serena Williams (tennis), Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings (beach volleyball), Diana Taurasi (basketball), Simone Biles (gymnastics), Ibtihaj Muhammad (fencing), and Jocelyne and Monique Lamoureaux (hockey).

 

This is a charming an inspirational short read for anyone wishing to celebrate female American athletes, throughout various eras of sporting history. And especially with the Summer Olympics currently providing its own array of inspirational figures right now!

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try She Persisted: 13 American Women Who Changed the World and She Persisted Around the World: 13 Women Who Changed History, also by Chelsea Clinton and Alexandra Boiger.]

[ Wikipedia page for Chelsea Clinton ] | [ official Alexandra Boiger web site ]

See the new Summer Olympics Reading List on BookGuide for more titles similar to this!

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Services

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Book Review: The Hero Two Doors Down by Sharon Robinson

The Hero Two Doors Down: Based on the True Story of Friendship Between a Boy and a Baseball Legend
by Sharon Robinson (j Robinson)

 

You don’t have to be a baseball fan to be a fan of this book. And by the end of the book you are likely to be a Jackie Robinson fan if you weren’t already. Penned by Sharon Robinson, daughter of Jackie Robinson, it is the mostly true story of her father’s friendship with a young boy and his family in 1948.

 

The book grabs you from the prologue. The father of our main character, Steve Satlow, unexpectedly passes away when Steve is 20, leaving Steve a letter and a box of his memories. One of the most important items being a ticket to the Brooklyn Dodger’s 1948 season opener.

 

And so the story jumps to 1948, when Jackie Robinson moves into a mostly Jewish neighborhood at the start of the baseball season. While the Jewish neighborhood at first has mixed emotions about a black family moving in, then eight-year-old Steve discovers who is moving in and impatiently watches to catch a glimpse of his baseball hero.

 

The story then details how a friendship develops between Steve’s family and the Jackie Robinson family. Steve, often in trouble at school, learns a great deal from Robinson and his family about patience and courage. As Steve learns how to deal with adversity, he decides he wants to help others, leading an effort at his school to donate to refugee children through UNICEF. Eventually it inspires Steve to become a doctor and continue helping people throughout his life. We also learn that the close friendship between the families endures throughout the rest of their lives.

 

Although Sharon Robinson was born in 1950, she depicts a wonderful story of a troubled boy finding patience and what it is to overcome hardships through a story she has been told over the years. As Sharon Robinson says in her afterword: “during these troubling times of global, racial, cultural, and religious unrest, I decided that this classic story of friendship and unity needed to be shared with the next generation of readers.”

 

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Child of the Dream, A Memoir of 1963 or Testing the Ice: A True Story About Jackie Robinson, both also by Sharon Robinson.]

[ The Hero Two Doors Down page on the official Sharon Robinson web site ]

 

Recommended by Cindy K.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Book Review: Beautiful on the Outside by Adam Rippon

Beautiful on the Outside:A Memoir
by Adam Rippon (Biography Rippon)

Figure skater Adam Rippon was not expected to make the 2018 Olympic team at 28 years of age. But the planets aligned and the fates smiled for he suddenly began pulling together some of his best performances when it counted. He ended the Olympics with a Bronze Medal in the Team Competition, and is now retired from figure skating.

We follow him from his youth where he pretty well fails at all athletic attempts, but he syncs with figure skating. He quickly advances through the skating ranks and is regularly winning junior competitions on sheer natural talent. He’s the oldest of six children, then his parents divorce, so it’s quite a hardship for the family for the costs involved. They can afford a coach only a few days a week, they barter for ice time at area rinks, and they drive several hours each day to get him to practices.

Reading his story, one wonders how much farther he could have gone if finances hadn’t been an issue. Or if he’d had coaches who could have assisted him with the emotional side of competition as well as the technical aspects. Considering his circumstances, it’s amazing how far he got. You learn a lot of what it takes to be an elite athlete, and get some inside information on how US Figure Skating works. Somehow, during the worst of times he was able to push on through and continue with skating.

He also discusses the difficulties of being a closeted gay man while competing, and his concerns that other athletes and US Figure Skating will reject him. He eventually came out before the Olympics.

He’s funny, honest, and endearing. Some are stories we’ve already heard from him in other interviews. I’ve been following him on Twitter and Instagram before he made the Olympic team, and enjoy his humor — “When I qualified (for the 2018 Olympics), I told myself I was going to have the full Olympic experience, because it was only going to happen once, unless I really got into archery around forty and went to the Summer Games.”

He’s now a spokesperson for several companies, and has his own YouTube channel broadcasts.

This book is recommended for fans of Adam Rippon and figure skating in general.

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Landing It: My Life On and Off the Ice by Scott Hamilton, My Sergei: A Love Story by Ekaterina Gordeeva, A Skating Life by Dorothy Hamill, or Zero Regrets by Apolo Anton Ohno.]

[ publisher’s official Beautiful on the Outisde web site ] | [ official Adam Rippon Instagram feed ]

Recommended by Charlotte M.
Bennett Martin Public Library

Have you read this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Book Review: The Spirit of Nebraska by Debra Kleve White

The Spirit of Nebraska: A History of Husker Game Day Traditions: The Tunnel Walk, Mascots, Cheer and More
by Debra Kleve White (796.332 NebYw)

A unique and unusual look back at the history of pep squads, spirit squads, cheerleading squads and the like, at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This is a fascinating glimpse at various different eras in UNL sports history, and the traditions that have grown up around them over the decades (with a particular emphasis on the traditions and student support groups associated with the UNL football program.

Filled with both B&W and color photos, this book wanders back and forth in its specific subject matter, although it is broken into major thematic sections, such as “The Greatest Fans in College Football”, “The Beginning of Nebraska Football, School Spirit and the Ushering in of Cheerleading”, “The Secrets of the Innocents Society”, “How the Sea of Red was almost a Sea of Gold”, “No Place Like Nebraska – University Yells and Songs”, “Pride of the Cornhusker State – The Band”, “The Razzle-Dazzle of the Pompon Squads and the Scarlets Dance Team”, and “From Bugeaters to Cornhuskers and Corn Cob Man to Herbie Husker – The Lore Behind the Team Names and Mascots”.

I enjoyed this one, though the writing is a bit dry and lecturing in tone. But White, a former Yell Squad member, has an obvious passion for the history that she’s a part of. The photos are some of the most interesting parts of this hefty volume, and I definitely felt as thought I’d learned a lot of about University of Nebraska history after reading this book. As a member of the “Pride of All Nebraska” marching band in the early 80s, I would have enjoyed a little more than just seven pages dedicated to the band’s history, but the book as a lot of ground to cover.

[ official The Spirit of Nebraska web site ] | [ NET: All About Books – library director Pat Leach interviews Debra Kleve White about her book ]

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library

Have you read this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Book Review: Fence (volumes 1 and 2) by C.S. Pacat

Fence 1 + 2
by C.S. Pacat [YA PB (Graphic Novel) Pacat]

The intense characters on the covers of the first two entries in this series of graphic novels are what initially caught my attention — that, plus I’ve always been fascinating by the competitive sport of fencing.

Nicholas Cox, the illegitimate son of a former U.S. Olympic fencing champion, has followed his father into the sport, but without any traditional training. When he enters a fencing competition, he finds himself up against one of the rising talents in the sport, Seiji Katayama. Though Nicholas’ unorthodox fencing skills initially give Seiji some difficulties, the intense Japanese fencer quickly adapts and then destroys Cox in their match, belittling him in the process. This drives Cox into developing a revenge fantasy in which he can ultimately improve enough to take on Seiji and defeat him.

Which becomes somewhat ironic, when Cox is surprisingly able to an elite boys school with a stellar fencing program — and finds that his newly assigned roommate is none other than…Seiji Katayama. The other fencing students, and staff at the school, make for a large cast of recurring characters. There are lots of different personalities at play, with intense rivalries, growing friendships, and the complications of massively different social backgrounds. Throw all of that into the pressure cooker of a competitive sport the requires you to always be at the top of your game, and some fascinating stories are told.

Admittedly, I could have easily done without some of the subplots, involving flippant relationships and a cult of fannish adulation. But I’m willing to put up with those in order to find out what is ultimately going to happen to Nicholas, Seiji and the other fencing students. This was originally intended to be a short limited-series, but the publisher was so happy with the early issues of the comic that they allowed writer/artist C.S. Pacat to turn it into an ongoing, continuing series. These first two trade-paperback “graphic novel” books collect the first 12-or-so issues of the comic book, and each book ends on something of a cliffhanger. I look forward to reading the third volume!

[ Wikipedia page for the entire Fence series ] | [ official C.S. Pacat web site ]

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library

Have you read this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!