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Barbie shows two girls that they can compete against each other and still remain best friends.
How does a non-fiction author come to write a storybook featuring Barbie? It all started when a friend who worked at Golden Books asked me to suggest some jobs Barbie might have in a series of books about different careers. I was working at Careers & Colleges magazine at the time, so I started to look through some of the reference books I had in my office. But then my interest in sports kicked in. I called her back and suggested, “Why don’t you have Barbie be a coach?”
They discussed that idea at Golden, but came back to me with a different one. “We’ve decided to do an Amazing Athlete series where Barbie plays a different sport in each book,” my friend told me. “We’re going to start with basketball. Do you want to write the book?”
I was never much of a Barbie fan—I always preferred playing sports or “cowboys and Indians” to dolls—but writing the book was a different kind of challenge that really appealed to me. I named the two main characters after my niece Hannah and her best friend at the time, Crystal. And I named Coach Janssen for one of my favorite players in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, Fran Janssen.
Writing the book turned out to be fun, a nice change of pace. And Fran was particularly happy that the folks at Golden chose a red-headed doll to portray the coach. It couldn’t have been a better match. Fran’s nickname as a ballplayer was “Big Red,” due, of course, to the color of her hair.
Links:
Buy Barbie: Shooting Hoops from Amazon.com
Order an autographed copy.
Learn more about Barbie.
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