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I need some suggestions - We will be starting Realistic fiction in our Drawn into a heart of Reading soon. I would like to use "sports" books and do a unit with sports (my children are begging for a sports unit). I can find lots of "boy books" but not having much luck with "girl books" (all the ones I have checked out of the library are full of inappropriate words and activities)

Does anyone know any good "sports" books with a girl/girls as one of the main characters?

Thanks for the help.

This book is not really about sports, but it's the only realistic fiction book about girls that do unusual things I could think of.....True Heart by Marissa Moss. It's set in 1893 and it's about a girl who becomes a train engineer. There's a note from the author about the Women and the American Railroad Museum in Sacramento that inspired the book. It's a great story, and you don't realize that it's a girl until the end of the book. Not sure it would work for you, it's not very long, about 15 pages.

Are there any books about when women played baseball during the war? was the movie A League of Their Own based on a book?

I'm not much help, good luck with your quest!

Melanie,

Thanks for the reply. I will look into it - it sounds like a neat book.

There is a short book called "Players in Pigtails" which tells about girls playing baseball during WW2 (similar to League of their own).

It is difficult to find good "sports-themed" books for girls, so here's a few titles off the top of my head that you can check out. One is "Ballet Shoes" by Noel Streatfeild. It's a classic story about 3 young girls in an orphanage situation who are given ballet lessons to perform in an upcoming ballet.

Another option is "In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson" by Bette Bao Lord (the spelling of the author's name may be incorrect, but I don't have time to recheck it right now). This is a story about a young immigrant girl who begins to "fit in " in America after beginning to follow baseball and Jackie Robinson.

The third suggestion is not necessarily a girl-book, but an all around favorite classic of boys and girls both titled "Come On Sea Biscuit" by Ralph Moody. It's the wonderful true story of the racing horse Sea Biscuit set during the depression era.

I know this is an eclectic list - ballet, baseball, and horse racing - but I wasn't sure where your daughter's interests might lie.

Blessings,
Carrie

When I get stuck and nothing on the shelf is fitting.

I use bookadventure.com go to booklist in right hand side of site. Then use search function. There you can input reading level, if you want the books to be: harder, at reading level or easier. It has lots of catagories. You DO NOT have to sign up or log in to use the search engine. I found this a great tool to find books for the the heart of reading.

I keep the search engine up and my local library site up and copy and paste author for my library serach if the liberay has it I can find it fast and put it on hold so the next time go to library its waiting for me.

And Carrie! sea biscuit is a horse and "Anything Horse" my daughter loves.