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A review by elizabethlk
She Persisted in Sports: American Olympians Who Changed the Game by Chelsea Clinton
3.0
The "She Persisted" series is generally pretty cute, but I have to say that one of my biggest issues with it is right in the title. I feel like they're trying to say if you persist enough then you can achieve anything, but it always has this weird tone. I've had this issue since I read the first one and someone "persisted" their way out of being enslaved, and that's all kinds of yuck. This book doesn't do that, but shoehorning in "persistence" is so frustrating because it feels like a dangerous oversimplification, even in a children's book.
Anyway, She Persisted in Sports is a cute little introduction to USAmerican women Olympians, which isn't a subject I am deeply knowledgeable in, so I was unfamiliar with a few of them, but most of them are famous enough athletes from my own lifetime. There's a decent bit of racial diversity, as well as positive disability rep (as a disabled person I find "person with a disability" really irritating, but I understand it's the accepted term in the broader public so I'm trying not to judge too harshly based on that usage) although some of the tone veered a bit too close to inspiration porn for my tastes.
Overall, it's a decent book that's worth a read, but it's far from the first I would recommend if I were suggesting books about important women of the past and present.
Anyway, She Persisted in Sports is a cute little introduction to USAmerican women Olympians, which isn't a subject I am deeply knowledgeable in, so I was unfamiliar with a few of them, but most of them are famous enough athletes from my own lifetime. There's a decent bit of racial diversity, as well as positive disability rep (as a disabled person I find "person with a disability" really irritating, but I understand it's the accepted term in the broader public so I'm trying not to judge too harshly based on that usage) although some of the tone veered a bit too close to inspiration porn for my tastes.
Overall, it's a decent book that's worth a read, but it's far from the first I would recommend if I were suggesting books about important women of the past and present.