Ready for A Sports Roundup?

By Alice Meichsner

It’s football season folks! But really every time of year has dozens of sports for fans to enjoy. Study the sports, the stats, the players, and learn more about your favorite games along the way!

Do you know the story of the GOAT in your favorite sport? How about the biggest success and comeback stories of your favorite teams? Or the lives of your favorite MVPs and Olympic athletes? Keep scrolling to find the most interesting biographies and stories about all the greatest superstars!

Here are the highlights from our publishing partners’ Spring 2022 lists! From picture books to graphic novels, nonfiction about perennial favorite topics like space and dinosaurs, diverse eReadalongs, board books, and high-low fiction, there’s something for everyone from our favorite publishers.

I’m not an athlete. No matter how much I enjoy being active, I’m too clumsy for sports. Too uninterested in competition.

But I raised an athlete, and we’re a family who enjoys watching sports of all kinds. An intense amount of dedication and determination goes along with athletic achievement. I know about the time, money, and support it takes to improve your game. I know about both joy and sorrow on the field—my son still carries a particular defeat with him, twelve years after it happened.

My love for athletes helped me write Gender Inequality in Sports—I wanted to champion the strength of women athletes who fight stereotypes and disrespect on top of the work they do for their sport. I want to recognize the perseverance of these competitors and share their stories with young people.

For baseball fans here in Minnesota, the long, cold winter seemed even longer and colder than usual. Fans usually have spring training to look forward to in February and March, but this winter was different. Major League Baseball players and owners argued about money and shut down the league. When months had passed and they still couldn’t agree, league owners delayed spring training. But as Opening Day approached, frozen labor negotiations thawed as quickly as Lake Minnetonka in April.

March is Women’s History Month, but if you’re not part of the judo world you may never have heard of “the mother of women’s judo,” Rena “Rusty” Glickman Kanokogi.

Glickman’s story is told in the upcoming picture book Rena Glickman, Queen of Judo. Read on to for a fascinating overview of her story and to take a peek inside the book.