Girls' Snowboarding: Showing Off Your Style

Children's Literature - Julia Beiker

Girls Snowboarding: Showing off Your Style is geared to encouraging young girls to learn more about the sport of snowboarding. From each chapter, readers gain more insight into the basics of snowboarding, from conditioning and stretching your muscles to prepare them for this strenuous activity, to wearing sunscreen to protect your exposed skin. Do not forget to find the right fitting of boots and board. This is vital for a successful day at snowboarding. This book shows the importance of getting an instructor and starting with the basic moves. Start out with jumping an ollie which is simply gaining speed, bending down, and then shifting your weight to the back of the board as it becomes airborne. Once you have graduated from the basics, the book goes more into how the professionals make this a breathtaking event where they risk their bodies every time they hit the slopes. We meet Olympic medalists, Gretchen Bleiler, Hannah Teter, Kelly Clark, and Lindsey Jacobellis, and discover how they conquer the snowy, icy elements to win respect as an Olympic athlete and as women. The author, Heather E. Schwartz targets this book more for young girls, but boys can still gain from the fundamental information provided. The realistic photos and easy to read text keep this book interesting for its targeted age, but I wonder if it could have been a stronger tool by highlighting the technical words to make them easier to learn. This book is part of the "Girls Got Game" series. Reviewer: Julia Beiker