Courage To Soar... by Simone Biles - A Book Review

I was browsing through my local library one day and the feel of summer reading was in the air. I feel like the library makes a special effort to draw in youth and young adult readers during this time of year. Naturally, I happened upon Courage To Soar : A body In Motion, A Life In Balance.

I’m going to jump right in and say this book was one of the easiest reads ever and to that I’m going to add that it was also one of the most boring books I’ve ever read. I’ve heard of Simone Biles, I’d seen her during the Rio Olympics but I never in my life have I read a book by someone whose life was so one-dimensional. At the very start, you're tricked into thinking this book is going to be about something, about a life...No! Biles gives a brief overview of her life with a drug addicted mother, her short stint in foster care and eventually being adopted by her grandparents.  From this point on the book is mostly about her life in gymnastics.

She gives brief honorable mentions to a few of her childhood friends but brief is all it could be because she was training for gymnastics several times (hours) a week. Now, I don’t want to take anything away from Biles, she worked hard to be an elite gymnast but I would have liked to see that she is a little more well rounded. Even in all of her traveling she doesn’t share whether or not she was able to experience the local culture along with the competition. She’s been to Italy, Belgium and several other countries and has traveled extensively throughout the US but all we get is that she goes from one gym to another - to one competition to another; nothing in between. Was that all she did in Italy? She didn’t eat a great slice of pizza or enjoy fresh made pasta by the masters themselves? As far as we know, she just went to the gym. It’s a little sad…But my husband reminded me of how young she is and may be that is a factor to her lack of life experience outside of gymnastics. And I guess you don’t happen upon Olympic Gold by going sightseeing and indulging in the local cuisine.

 

This book is a good read for persons aged 8-13 and really really into gymnastics. If you are not at all familiar with gymnast jargon, have your google open for reference.