Dear TBR
Though I wanted to be, your girl is NOT a ball-and-bat-and-sweats-and-spike girlie. I played football in junior high because I was fast and aggressive and very, very angry so bashing my body into boys without getting a felony count seemed like a good idea, until I was yanked unceremoniously off the team by my father. It was fine, really – while I did my best, sports are one place where my spatial disability makes me trip a lot, run left when I should run right, be clueless about yardage and — yeah. Football plays make as much sense to me as knitting patterns, so it wasn’t going to have lasted long anyway.
But I WANTED to be a sporty girl. And reading these two books about the team solidarity and body-mind connection that sports require are giving pure Title IX.
IT’S ALL OR NOTHING, VALE,, by Andrea Beatriz Arango
Vale – or Valentina Marí Camacho – is a Puerto Rican girl from Virginia who has been competitively fencing for years and years and years. Fed on a steady diet of “pain is just weakness leaving the body,” “winner’s don’t quit,” and told so long that “it’s all or nothing,” Vale has honed herself to be determined, 100% serious effort. She’s never been good at anything, really, unlike her brother, but she’s good enough at fencing to have been tagged to go to the junior Olympics. As an athlete, she’s at the top of her game and fiercely proud of it. But an accident on the back of her father’s motorcycle breaks her leg in multiple places and suddenly Vale is out of competition for four long months.
Her return – which is where the book begins – is not the glorious sprint she envisioned, but a pained limp. Her parents argue constantly about whether or not she should sit down, use her cane, do yoga, or try whatever random internet-sourced cure that Vale’s mother has found. Her Papí, meanwhile, believes nothing but that she is fine, and that she will be back to 100% if she just puts in the time. Her mother her to be hyperfragile and her father believing she’s indestructible has more to do with them than with Vale, but she’s unable to see that, because the family cannot themselves articulate their own feelings – or fears. Vale returns to her fencing group unsure if “disabled” is a bad word, hearing whispers of dolor chronico, and terrified but unable to share it. And to her shock, the forceful, graceful effort that fencing requires seems no longer available to her, even with Vale giving it 150%. And to make everything exponentially worse, Cuban Myrka Mareero – a gorgeous, pink-haired newcomer, has not only taken Vale’s spot, she’s also got her attention in a way that Vale isn’t sure she’s ready to deal with. At ALL.
SO much to love in this book – from the stunning cover to the liberal use of Spanish, which challenged me but left carefully placed context clues for if I couldn’t remember a vocabulary word. I don’t think I’ve ever read a MG story about chronic pain, injury, and perfectionism that hit me in the same way, and the fact that the novel doesn’t end with a conclusion “and then Vale decided X, and she lived happily ever after” is one of its major strengths. The novel is merely a moment in a long process which is just beginning – a truth so important which we need more novels which center. Healing and survival are always-in-progress things.
OUT OF OUR LEAGUE,, edited by Dahlia Adler & Jennifer Iacopelli
Reading an ensemble book like an anthology is usually an uneven experience for me – some stories I love so hard that I could squeeze them, and other stories rate little more than a “Meh” or a baffled question as to how they were included. This anthology of sixteen short stories about female athletes held far more winners than expected, and is HANDS DOWN the best sports anthology I’ve ever read. I can’t talk about all of story, I’ll highlight a few I especially enjoyed:
“Safe at Home” by Jennifer Iacopelli opened the book strongly with a story of sisters pitted against each other in the under18 amateur baseball championship. Even going viral for footage of her stealing home – making her older sister, Meredith, drop the ball as she bashed into her – wasn’t the major victory Molly Hancock expected it to be. She’s always felt less-than her brilliant, accomplished older sister, and making the winning run for her team is quickly overshadowed, first by her getting into her university of choice, then next by the whispers of sports commentators. Male sports commentators. She dropped the ball to give her sister the win. Isn’t that sweet? Of all the things Molly expected to be wondering about, that was never a question.
“Sidelined” by Maggie Hall pits friends Ollie and Lexie against each other on the basketball court and for Oliver, on the football field. In just a few short weeks, their winning combination will be dissolved – while they go to colleges on opposing sides of the map. Lexie is settling – but she doesn’t want to acknowledge it. She’s been offered a basketball scholarship, and thought it’s not really her game – she’s her high school star, and they offered, and she’s an athlete, right? Leaving her dearest friend and her brother behind shouldn’t make a difference, if she gets to come out ahead and compete, right? …Right?
“Power Ten in Two” by Leah Henderson was utterly delightful – Emersyn knows all there is to know about her sport, and she’s been playing against high school students since she was a seventh grader. She’s a senior headed for a Division 1 soccer team in college, and a true believer in her coach’s mantra of Outplay. Outwork. Outlast. Outshine. Nothing matters more than winning… but when Emersyn but when she gets dumped in with a jayvee crew team for two weeks, she knows less than the newbies. How could her coach do this to her? Why is she in the WORST boat? And, what the heck is a ‘power ten?’ Emersyn has to learn – and quickly – what she’s with the rowing team to learn – but fortunately for her, it isn’t to win against impossible odds.
Volley Girl, by Dahlia Adler made me smile because every summer camp, whether its a sports camp or not, has some similarities. Camp Ilan is coming to a close for Azi, and all the memories she’s made with her girls, all the horrible volleyball coaching she’s endured, every fight she’s broken up, every hour spent perfecting her serve – pretty soon none of that is going to matter to anyone in the larger world. It’s hard to embrace the idea that winning isn’t not only not everything, that sometimes it’s not anything – and that there’s more to life, but Azi is going to try…
Fresh onto the TBR:
- Sea Legs, Jules Bakes/li>
- On the Hippie Trail, Rich Steves
- I Got Abducted By Aliens And Now I’m Trapped In A Rom-Com, by Kimberly Lemming
Even if some of us weren’t meant to be sports stars, we can all look up and find our own guiding stars – which in these books were literally playing for love of the game – and for love of self, which turns out to be an unbeatable combination. Stay reading!
📚 Still A Constant Reader
