Go-for-Gold Gymnasts: Unexpected Twist by Dominique Moceanu and Alicia Thompson

Christina Flores is going to be an Olympic gymnastics champion someday. That's her goal and that's her mom's goal; every day each work toward it in their own ways. Christina practices her routines while her Mom watches them and points out areas that Christina should work on. There's a big competition coming up, and it could be one to put Christina and the other Texas Twisters on the radar for the next Olympic Team. Christina starts working extra hard...and ignores the pain that she feels in her foot. At this crucial point in her career, is her body going to let her down? And is she going to let down her mother?

I was anticipating the 'Do I want to stay in gymnastics?' plot in Jessie's book, but it also gets visited from a slightly different angle in Unexpected Twist. Since the first book in the series, Christina's been shown to be a little tightly wound - focused on gymnastics but almost to the exclusion of everything else. She, like Noelle, feels the pressure of a family who has committed themselves to her gymnastics, although where for Noelle's family it's more the sacrifice of money, for Christina's mom it's the sacrifice of a life outside of her daughter.  Even through to the book's resolution I was never quite sure why her mom has built her life this way: is she living through her daughter? Did she have a lack of support growing up? Is she doing it to fill in all the lonely space in her life due to her absent husband? But I guess it's not really a book about Christina's mom - it's a book about Christina and what happens to her when she starts to question how clear her vision of being an Olympic champion is. The book explores the area between how one person sees something and how different it is from how someone else sees the same thing; Christina and her mom have a big fight on Christmas because her mom thinks she's ungrateful while Christina just wants to show her frustration. She learns about controlling the things that are within her control and dealing with the things she can't. Christina hasn't always been sympathetic when seen through the eyes of the other gymnasts, so this glimpse into her life really rounds out the series. This is the fourth of four scheduled books, but there are some story strands started her that could easily carry the series through more books in the future.


Find it at IndieBound. 

Read it with:
Go for the Gold by Elizabeth Levy
Off Balance: A Memoir by Dominique Moceanu
The Go-for-Gold Gymnasts: Winning Team by Dominique Moceanu and Alicia Thompson
The Go-for-Gold Gymnasts:Balancing Act by Dominique Moceanu and Alicia Thompson
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens 

Go-for-Gold Gymnasts: Reaching High by Dominique Moceanu and Alicia Thompson

Jessie can stay calm when it comes to performing routines in the Texas Twisters gym, but she's nervous about starting high school. It hasn't been long since she started taking gymnastic lessons again after spending some time dealing with an eating disorder. Her other friends from the team aren't in high school yet, so Jessie is nervous that she's going to be all alone. After a few tense run-ins with one particularly mean girl, Jessie decides to befriend her by agreeing to be part of the cheerleading team. Her coach and friends don't think this is a good idea, but Jessie doesn't understand why they aren't being more supportive. She just wants to have a life of her own - is that such a bad thing?

(Spoilers below!)

I was pleasantly surprised by this book, the third in the four-book "Go-for-Gold Gymnasts" series. I was expecting there to be a book where one of the gymnasts questioned her commitment to being an Elite-level gymnast, and after Jessie was revealed to have an eating disorder in the first book, it made sense that as she re-evaluated her life she would also re-evaluate how she felt about being a competitive gymnast. The surprise part came from the ending, where she decided to re-commit herself to gymnastics; that wasn't what I was expecting but, in the course of the story, it was a plot point that felt earned. Dominique Moceanu and Alicia Thompson are able to craft a story that pulls back the curtain on gymnastics and shows how hard and lonely it can be while still illustrating why someone would be willing - would want - to be a part of it. Jessie makes decisions that make me want to sit her down and have a good talk with her, but she shows that even when she is making bad choices she has a good heart and a good head. I'm really looking forward to spending some time with Christina, the one remaining narrator, in the fourth book of the series.

Find it at IndieBound.

Read it with:
Go for the Gold by Elizabeth Levy
Off Balance: A Memoir by Dominique Moceanu
The Go-for-Gold Gymnasts: Winning Team by Dominique Moceanu and Alicia Thompson
The Go-for-Gold Gymnasts:Balancing Act by Dominique Moceanu and Alicia Thompson

Go-for-Gold Gymnasts: Balancing Act by Dominique Moceanu and Alicia Thompson

Noelle Onesti is incredible on the balance beam. She has the opportunity to be one of the best Junior Elite gymnasts in the country. She's already qualified for the national championships, but it's going to cost a lot of money for her to make the trip from Texas to Philadelphia. Money is something her family doesn't have a lot of, and Noelle is worried that her gymnastics expenses are already putting a strain on her family. She doesn't want to disappoint her coaches or her parents, but she can't face the truth, either. Will she ever get her chance to show the country what she can do?

By this point in the series it's pretty clear that each of the girls in the Texas Twisters has their own issues/storylines: Britt is the new girl who struggles to fit in, Jessie is dealing with an eating disorder and taking a look at her commitment to gymnastics, Christina has an over-involved mom who's likely trying to live through her daughter. Noelle has buckets of talent, a competitive drive, attention to detail...and a sensitive nature that means she worries about everything. She worries about her parents' business, she worries about the financial toll of gymnastics, she worries about the way her older brother is acting out (and in turn worrying her parents, giving Noelle one more thing to worry about). The best part about this book is that it flushes out the personalities of all of the girls on the squad; we're no longer seeing them through Britt's eyes (and get to see Britt through someone else's eyes). This four-book series is just what to give young readers who have been entranced by Gabby Douglas and the other gymnasts at the London Olympic Games. It doesn't gloss over the hardships that the gymnasts face but still packs in a lot of drama, action, and heart.

Find it at IndieBound. 

Read it with:
Go for the Gold by Elizabeth Levy
Off Balance: A Memoir by Dominique Moceanu
The Go-for-Gold Gymnasts: Winning Team by Dominique Moceanu and Alicia Thompson
The Go-for-Gold Gymnasts: Reaching High by Dominique Moceanu and Alicia Thompson

How to Watch the Olympics by David Goldblatt and Johnny Acton

In one sense, it's easy to figure out how to watch the Olympics: find a TV station that has the broadcast rights or stream it online, and you're watching the Olympics. But what exactly are you watching? How does one score points in a judo match? What's the difference between kayaking, canoeing, and rowing? What are the events that make up the decathlon? What about the heptathlon? What makes the modern pentathlon so modern? And what exactly is a repechage? With chapters for each of the sports (as well as the opening and closing ceremonies, medal ceremonies, past Olympic games, and discontinued Olympic sports), How to Watch the Olympics aims to be your go-to reference book during the 2012 London Olympic Games.

As a big fan of the Olympics, the cover of this book caught my eye as I was browsing in an airport bookstore. I initially hoped that it would be a critical socio-political at the games (with possible topics including American broadcasting strategy, the amount of money spent on the games, gender equality and inequality). Instead, though, it was a history-slash-introduction of the games and the sports on display, something I was also interested in checking out. As a young girl I latched onto a copy of one of David Wallechinsky's Complete Book of the Olympics and read it over and over until the pages started falling out. That was almost twenty years ago, though, and  as I often feel with reference books, I wondered about its use in a world where so much information is available online; as I sat on my couch with my iPhone and this book, how many times would I reach for each one? I didn't keep track, but there have been times where I was reaching for the book (particularly during the cycling events). While I do think that this book would only be enhanced in some kind of ebook form that would allow links to video footage, maps, and more photographs, it can easily stand without these things (and, in fact, has to - it's very clear that this is an "unofficial" Olympic book and as such does not have any pictures of the Olympic rings, flames, or mascots). The intended audience is the average Olympic watcher - someone who might know something about a few of the sports but has little knowledge of others. It strikes a tone somewhere between chatty and instructional (and uses a lot of British expressions along the way). It could be read through from beginning to end, but also works if you want to pick it up and dip into sections as needed. I'd really love to see a companion version for the Winter Olympics as well as updated versions for future Games.

Find it at IndieBound. 

Read it with:
The Complete Book of the Olympics 2012 Edition by David Wallechinsky and Jaime Loucky
The Ball is Round: A Global History of Soccer by David Goldblatt
Gold by Chris Cleave
Inside the Olympics by Nick Hunter

Go for the Gold by Elizabeth Levy

Heidi Ferguson was America's rising gymnast star...until anorexia sidelined her career and left many wondering if she'd ever compete again. Recovery was difficult but Heidi is finally back competing, and she's stronger than ever. She's America's best hope at an Olympic medal in gymnastics and a star at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona. She knows what it will take to win and is ready to go for the gold, but injuries, pressure, and biased judges threaten to get in the way. Heidi is going to give it her all, but will it be enough?

A lot of my childhood books were random ones that, if I had to guess, were picked up from yard sales, book sales, etc, at least before I started defining my own reading preferences. This was a book that I know I had (and still have), but I didn't own or read the rest of The Gymnasts series (with the bizarre exception of Tumbling Ghosts - again, it had to have been a yard sale pick). I loved Go for the Gold as a girl an even had many of the most dramatic lines memorized (I can't tell you which ones, it would give away the plot). It has stood up surprisingly well. It's set during the 1992 Barcelona Summer Games, and even though that's now 20 years ago, not much stands out too much as being dated. Yes, technology has changed, but that's about it. There are things in there that make sense for a reader today: the realities of anorexia in sports like gymnastics, parental pressure, being friendly with competitors while still trying to beat them, carrying the weight of a nation's hopes, dealing with paparazzi and journalists and agents. Set before the Magnificent 7-era of the 1996 Olympics, it makes sense that an American winning the All-Around Gold in 1992 would have been a big deal. Heidi is a likeable character: a determined athlete struggling to balance the expectations and fears of her parents, coach, and friends with her own expectations and fears. This book is long out of print, but if you can find it (maybe at a yardsale? or in a library or a used book store) it would be a great read during the 2012 Olympics.

(Also, is it just me, or does the cover picture look a little bit like teenage Robin on How I Met Your Mother?)

Check out more information on Elizabeth Levy at her website.

Find out more information at Amazon.

Read it with:
The Gymnasts: The Beginners by Elizabeth Levy
Gold Medal Dreams: Chance of a Lifetime by Melissa Lowell
Off Balance by Dominique Moceanu
Winning Balance by Shawn Johnson

A Passion for Victory by Benson Bobrick

Every Olympic cycle, there's a new crop of hungry athletes looking to make their golden dreams come true; there's also a new crop of books about the International sporting event. Schools and libraries in particular need to make sure their collections are current and relevant and cover not only today's athletes but also athletes from games past. What sets A Passion for Victory apart from other books is that it explores the area that other books often skip over: the origins of the Ancient Olympics and the first Modern Olympic Games. Sure, many books talk about the ancient traditions or talk about Pierre de Coubertin, but it's often just a cursory look on the way to focusing on today's sports stars. This book looks closely at the Greek traditions and the people who shaped the development of the Olympics. It also stops around mid-20th century in terms of the Modern Olympics. Because of this focus, it wouldn't make sense for this to be the only book on the Olympics that you have (particularly if you're looking for something that will discuss the games to the present day), but it would make an excellent addition to any sports collection.

I received a review copy from NetGalley courtesy of Random House.

Find it at IndieBound.

Read it with:
The Battle of Nashville by Benson Bobrick
Rush For Gold: Mystery at the Olympics by John Feinstein
The 2012 London Olympics by Nick Hunter

Gold by Chris Cleave

Zoe knows what winning Olympic gold feels like. She knows what it's like to win the biggest race of your life and to feel like you will die if you don't. Kate knows what it feels like to come just short of the chance that you've been working towards for your entire life. She knows how her life isn't just her life, but how it intersects with the lives of the people that she loves. Zoe and Kate have in each others lives since they were teenagers who met at an elite training camp for cyclists. In the years since they have been teammates, rivals, competitors, enemies, and friends. The 2012 London Olympics, held in their home country, will be their last Olympics, but it will be impossible for both of them to get to compete. This one last competition between the two women echoes their history and has the power to determine the rest of their lives.

I could not put this book down. I loved the insight that it provided into the mind of a highly competitive athlete. Zoe saw nothing as off-limits, including mind games as varied as trying to make a competitor think that her cycle is broken or playing a 'long con' of pretending to steal her boyfriend. While Zoe and Kate are at the centre of the novel, the story in many ways is just as much about the other people in their world. Completing their sphere are Tom (their coach), Jack (Kate's husband and a champion cyclist who has known both Zoe and Kate since that first training camp), and Sophie (Jack and Kate's leukemia-stricken daughter). All five of these people are struggling with things that they hide and avoid until they can't be hidden anymore. The story is told with interspersed flashbacks; remarks and details from the beginning of the story take on a completely different meaning by the end of the book. It's compelling and timely and a great book for readers in this Olympic year.


Learn more about Chris Cleave at his website.


I received an advance review copy from NetGalley courtesy of Random House Canada.


Find it at IndieBound. 

Read it with:
Little Bee by Chris Cleave
The Bone Cage by Angie Abdou
Inside the Olympics by Nick Hunter

Rush for Gold: Mystery at the Olympics by John Feinstein

Being aspiring reporters means that Susan Carol and Stevie are often in the right place at the wrong time...or the right place at the right time to foil someone else's plot. Susan Carol also has other special skills. She's a top swimmer who is on track to compete at the Summer Olympics in London. It should be a wonderful time, but she's weighed down by agents and coaches and everything that goes along with being an elite athlete. But it's more than that; is it possible that there's an international conspiracy going on in her event? Susan Carol and Stevie have solved mysteries before...but this time it's personal.

This is a great tie-in with the upcoming Summer Olympics. I love reading novels about athletes and the Olympics. Susan Carol and Stevie are both highly motivated, smart characters with believable moments of naivete. It was a little weird to see real life people (mainly swimmers) appearing in the story as fictional characters; I don't know why this strikes me as stranger more than in movies, but it does. Overall, though, it's a fun sports story with a bit of a mystery and a friendship (and possibly more) between two likeable teen characters.

Check out John Feinstein's website.

I received a review copy from NetGalley courtesy of Random House.

Find it at IndieBound.

Read it with:
Go for the Gold by Elizabeth Levy
Last Shot: A Final Four Mystery by John Feinstein
Beneath the Surface by Michael Phelps

Swift Edge: A Mystery by Laura DiSilverio

Charlie Swift is skeptical when a young figure skater shows up at her office. The girl, Dara Peterson, is desperate - her partner Dmitri Fane has gone missing and the Olympics are only weeks away; the US National Champions are even sooner. Lots of people think that Dmitri has just gone away to clear his head (or is hidden away with a new boyfriend), but Dara knows that something is wrong. Charlie accepts the case and soon finds herself immersed in the strange world of figure skating. There are a lot of people who are happier with Dmitri gone, including Peterson and Fane's biggest rivals. But Dmitri might have been up to more that just triple jumps, and as the bodies start piling up Charlie Swift could be in mortal danger. Good thing she had an extra-large Pepsi to start the day.

I picked this book up for the figure skating aspect of it rather than being attracted to the mystery part, so that's the lens that I'm viewing it with. There were parts that made a lot of sense (such as being set in Colorado Springs, home to one of the biggest US training centres and some top-level coaches) and then details that didn't (such as the focus on the National Competition being incredibly important when the US would almost definitely have two entries to the Olympic Games, so it wouldn't matter who won Nationals, or the idea of a pairs team doing side-by-side triple axels), but I think only a big skating fan would make a note of these issues. The mystery gets a bit convoluted as more characters are introduced, but plots and suspects dovetail and tie-in nicely, building to a big finish. Charlie maintains her sarcastic tone but also displays the characteristics that make her good at her job. Gigi, her partner, often plays for comic relief, but she's given enough of a back-story to make me root for her and want her to succeed. Many reviewers have written that this is a good pick for fans of Sue Grafton and Janet Evanovich, so if you like those writers be sure to give Laura DiSilverio a try.

See more at Laura DiSilverio's website.

Find it at IndieBound.

Read it with:
Swift Justice by Laura DiSilverio
Swift Run by Laura DiSilverio
Murder She Wrote: Skating on Thin Ice by Donald Bain

Shattered Hopes: Canada's Boycott of the 1980 Olympic Games by Sheila Hurtig Robertson

In 1980, the United States announced that it would boycott the Olympic Games that were being held in Moscow as a protest against the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. It was soon announced that Canada would be joining the boycott. For the athletes who had been working towards this event for years, the decision was heartbreaking, hurtful, and devastating. Some athletes focused on attending the Olympics in 1984 (an event marked by a Soviet-led boycott of the US-hosted games), some continued on as coaches and advisers, while others left their sport altogether. Decades later, the emotions that the athletes, coaches, and officials left are still clearly evident as they look back at the Olympic dream that never was.

Since I became interested in learning about the Olympics, I have known about the 1980 and 1984 boycotts as facts on a page; I had not stopped to consider what it must have been like for the people at the time. Similarly, I had not thought of in terms of a Canadian context: the 1980 boycott followed the 1976 Montreal Olympics and came just before Calgary was announced as the host city for the 1988 games. It is almost impossible to imagine Canada not sending a team to the next winter Olympics after Vancouver; the momentum that comes from building a strong national team would completely disappear. The lack of communication (and clear communication) in 1980 is almost unthinkable today, too. And the timing - many of the Olympic qualifying events were held after the announcement of the boycott.  This analogy might strike some as going too far, but while reading many of the accounts, I couldn't help but think of a mother who gives birth to a baby that she knows has already died when hearing about the athletes who had to go through with the Olympic Trials after they knew there was not going to be an Olympic Team. The loss that many of them speak about strikes that deep. Even for those who had previously been at an Olympics (or would attend a later one), the experience of missing out on the 1980 games drastically changed the course of their sporting lives. It was fascinating to read the different interpretations of what had happened, each coloured by the individual's perspective and memory. The Olympic Team event in Toronto (a dinner and medal presentation for the athletes and coaches followed by a Gordon Lightfoot concert), for example, is remembered by different people as a nice gesture, as too little too late, an exclusive event not open to all athletes, and as a meaningful ceremony. The frustration that comes from now viewing the boycott as a meaningless gesture (particularly when other trade and sport sanctions were not invoked) makes the situation difficult to understand. In many of the interviews, it's clear that vague threats to boycott the 2008 Olympics were present in the minds of the athletes, but it is difficult to picture a boycott of the same magnitude now that the Olympics (and amateur sport in general) occupy a different place in the TV and economic world. The stories collected in this volume tell a story that has too long been silent. This is recommended reading for any fan of Canadian or Olympic sports.

I received an advance review copy from NetGalley courtesy of Iguana Books.

See more about Shattered Hopes at Iguana Books

Read it with:
Inside the Olympics by Nick Hunter
Inside the Olympics by Richard Pound
Taking the Lead: Strategies and Solutions from Female Coaches by Sheila Hurtig Robertson

Inside the Olympics by Nick Hunter

In 1896, a modern sporting tradition began; the first modern Olympic Games were held in Athens, Greece. In the century since for first Olympics, the games have seen triumph and tragedy, power and passion. There have been incredible athletes who won - and lost - Olympic medals and athletes who made powerful statements just by being at the games. There have been many scandals (drugs, cheating, corruption behind the scenes) and even some fatal acts of violence. Some sports have been held ever year since 1896 (or 1924, the first year of the Winter Olympic Games) and others couldn't even have been dreamed of by the organizers of those games. Inside the Olympics looks at the history of the Olympics, great moments and athletes, and how the games are organized in the Twenty-First Century. 

I was in Grade Four during the 1994 Winter Olympic Games in Lillehammer, Norway, and I remember us doing a unit on it in class. That's when I became really interested in the Olympics and figure skating in particular. Because of that, I always love seeing new books about the Olympics that are written for kids. Inside the Olympics does a great job of covering the event from the ancient games through to the present day, with a look to this year's London games and beyond. The print in the eBook version that I read was a little small in the viewer, but it likely is a bit more readable in the print version. All of the things that I expected to be in here are here (Muhammad Ali's win in 1960, the black power salute in 1968, Jesse Owens at "Hitler's Olympics" in 1936, Michael Phelps's gold medals in 2008, a biography of Pierre de Coubertin, Ben Johnson's story in 1988) along with stuff that I wasn't expecting (the coverage of the Winter Olympics, the focus on the Paralympics and Paralympic athletes). Maps, charts, and a glossary of terms round out this solid non-fiction title. If your classroom or library has an outdated Olympic title on the shelves (or you're looking to kindle some Olympic interest in a child of your own), this is a great choice for a new replacement.

I received a review copy from NetGalley courtesy of Capstone.

Find it at IndieBound.

Read it with:
Modern Olympic Games by Haydn Middleton
How to Train with a T. Rex and Win Eight Gold Medals by Michael Phelps
The Olympics: Legendary Sporting Events by Matt Christopher