July 1, 2023
Grades 3-5 A gripping, sports-writing style pulses through the Sports Illustrated Kids: Heroes and Heartbreaks series (4 titles), which gives exciting play-by-play accounts of unexpected victories and unfathomable failures in the world of sports. One of the series' biggest strengths is the sheer variety of sports represented in its pages. Yes, football, basketball, baseball, and soccer are there, but so are hockey, tennis, boxing, golf, swimming, and gymnastics. Short passages in the second-person present bookend each title's main text, helping to reel in readers, and scattered fact boxes add historical context throughout. According to Hitting the Shot, "clutch" moments in sports demand amazing athletic feats performed under extreme pressure--for example, an injured Kerri Strug's near-perfect gymnastics vault during the 1996 Summer Olympics. There's never a dull moment in these books, which showcase the value of perseverance, hard work, joy, and humility.
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