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GIRLS GOT GAME by Sue Macy

GIRLS GOT GAME

Sports Stories & Poems

edited by Sue Macy

Pub Date: April 1st, 2001
ISBN: 0-8050-6568-7
Publisher: Henry Holt

This welcome anthology of original stories and poems explores a wide range of emotions and experiences of athletic girls. Since relatively few sports books focus on girls, this gives voice to fresh material and viewpoints. What is it like for a girl to clash with a female coach? What happens when a girl loves football above all other sports and has the physical build to play it? Can a romantic friendship between a girl and boy survive when the girl beats the boy in a tetherball tournament? The short stories and poems hinge on these and similar issues that girls deal with in the world of sports. Macy, whose previous books (Winning Ways: A Photohistory of American Women in Sports, 1996, etc.) have also broken ground in the area of females and sports, has assembled a group of well-known and lesser-known writers, all women with sports in their background. Virginia Euwer Wolff contributes an engaging story of three generations of women involved in the physically demanding sport of synchronized swimming. Jacqueline Woodson, winner of the 2001 Coretta Scott King Author Award, uses a colloquial first-person voice to create Beanie, a girl who excels at stickball but must deal with the jealousy of boys who don’t play as well, while also struggling with her sexuality. Other stories and poems look at soccer, horseback riding, tennis, track, baseball, and more. With its original topics and insights, this thematic anthology should find a place in all libraries that serve middle-schoolers. (Short-story/poetry anthology. 11-14)