|
A tribute to the talent and dedication
of female athletes.
Play Like a Girl was originally going to be a compilation of photographs and poems about female athletes. The problem was, we couldn’t find enough poems that talked about sports the way girls and women were experiencing them at the end of the 20th century—with joy and intensity and a feeling of entitlement. The majority of females no long had to fight to play sports. They just went out and played.
Instead of poems, we decided to look for excerpts from stories, articles, and books. We collected every sports anthology we could, as well as issues of every sports magazine featuring women and all of the autobiographies and biographies focusing on female coaches and athletes. As we poured over them for nuggets of truth about the female athletic experience, we also looked through thousands of slides, prints, and contact sheets for images that reflected those truths.
I came to think of Play Like a Girl as a love letter to female athletes. It’s not a big book, but it’s full of honest emotions and admiration for girls and women who give it their all.
What the Critics Said
“Full-color action photographs of today’s female athletes burst with energy, exertion and excitement. Their photographs are accompanied by brief quotes that are as daringly placed on brightly colored page backgrounds as the visual images….‘Trying to articulate the zone is not easy because it’s such an indescribable feeling. That moment doesn’t happen often…’ writes Chris Evert. Neither do exhilarating books such as this.”
—Cooperative Children’s Book Center, August 1999
“This inspirational book demonstrates that the phrase ‘you play like a girl’ is high praise indeed.”
—School Library Journal, September 1999
“A picture is worth a thousand words…and when you attach inspirational quotes to it, the picture’s worth even more! Play Like a Girl, then, must be worth millions, because it’s a great collection of fabulous photos of superstar athletes paired with motivational words from other superstar athletes.”
—SportsTalk, Women’s Sports Foundation, Fall 2001
Awards and Distinctions
-
YALSA Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers, 2000 (American Library Association)
-
Cooperative Children’s Book Center Choices, 2000 (University of Wisconsin)
-
Books for the Teen Age, 2000 (New York Public Library)
-
Children’s Pick of the Lists, Fall 1999 (American Booksellers Association)
Links:
Buy Play Like a Girl from Amazon.com
Order an autographed copy.
See more images of female athletes at the Web site for Jane Gottesman’s photography exhibition project, Game Face.
TOP
|
