From School Library Journal
Grade 1-4 Through exquisite soft-focus photographs, readers experience a young girl's first class at a gymnastic club with her friend. Children will move through the lesson with the girls and their diverse classmates, including two boys. Each spread focuses on a particular skill. Discussions of stretching, conditioning, splits, and rolls are followed by information on advanced skills on the beam, vault, apparatus, rings, and bars. Safety procedures, appropriate clothing, sequencing, and competing are also considered. Both large and smaller step-by-step photographs have clarifying captions and descriptions. An attractive book for children interested in knowing more about this sport. Janice C. Hayes, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Booklist
K-Gr. 3. Similar in format to Ballet School (2003)and Ice Skating School (2004), this book, also illustrated with Handley's irresistible photos, invites readers inside a British gymnastics training center. Variations in experience are accommodated through an upbeat narrative that brings an absolute beginner, a girl of about seven, to class with her more advanced friend. The newcomer receives tutorials in warm-ups and safety and then watches her racially diverse classmates practice moves on floor, vault, beam, and bars. An older student demonstrates choreographed routines, prefacing the younger girls' preparation for a first competition. American gymnasts may be bemused by some of the British terminology, and boys' events are discussed in only two spreads. But members of the book's target audience, a group clearly indicated by the soft-focus cover image of a girl in a pretty sky-blue uniform striking a graceful pose, will appreciate the attractive, up-to-date coverage of a sport that tends to receive only sporadic attention clustering around summer Olympics. Jennifer Mattson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
