A TRY AT TUMBLING

by Dorothy Kayser French ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 9, 1970

. . . who succeeds at gymnastics? The spunky, determined boy or girl."" Like me, thinks Mardi (Mardell!?!) as Coach Faklas continues his briefing to the beginners. She has the aptitude, she knows from walking the rails behind Grandma's apartment, and the motivation--to make friends in Masondale where, Grandma gone, she's curt ""spinster"" Miss Eva Evansby's foster child and, as snide Antoinette Marie Cornelius is wont to remind her, a welfare case. And if Mardi's progress on the mats, the bars, the vaulting horse, the trampoline and especially the balance beam evokes the crashingly obvious ""how wonderful to build skill and to build friendships at the same time,"" still ""the warmth of accomplishment"" is real, given the flipflops the author puts her through, and to an extent redemptive. However expectable her eventual ""rapport"" with Miss Evansby (the word comes to her in one of the book's rare flashes) and see-through to ""Toni,"" the gymnastics at the Y remain rigorous and Mardi doesn't grab a first prize at her first meet.

Pub Date: Sept. 9, 1970

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Lippincott

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1970

Categories: FICTION