Good sports
Mmmmmmm! It is difficult to write a BAD sports book. But it happens. There is the "I took drugs" genre, and the "the other ones took drugs too" genre, and the "Everybody says I took drugs, but it is because I am a foreigner" genre.
Apart from that, there is always something to learn and there are hundreds of good books on any kind of sport. But what if you had to pick up only one book? One book has changed the kids I gave it to.
One book I lended around and it never came back, so I had to buy it again and again. It is by Mike Shanahan Think like a champion***
With that, two of the greatest sports movies. Chariots of fire *** The movie depicts two British runners for the 1924 Olympics: one is a future missionary, the other is a Jewish student at Cambridge university. It is a beautiful film and the music by Vangelis is fantastic. The second movie describes the baseball world of the Yankees and was directed by Billy Crystal in 2001, 61* ***using exact reconstructions of everything of the 1961 era, from the stadium colors to the contents of the lockers and the swearing common to that generation of players. The movie is about the friendship between Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris and how Maris hit 61 home runs in 1961. If your kids are well educated, I would not worry about the swearing. The movie has great lessons about courage, dedication, adversity, injustice, friendship despite competition, and a lot of pain. Plus the actors are fantastic (both Jane and Pepper have a moment of grace). I do not know of any movie that is so subtle about the meaning of winning or any movie that makes you think so deeply about what is a team.
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