A Chance to Fly: Essays, Poems, and Art from Starlings Girls [Paperback]

Byron Shewman (Author)

Book Description

Beginning with a single San Diego team in 1996, today Starlings Volleyball Clubs, USA, is the largest Junior Volleyball program in the nation—serving more than 2,000 girls in over 30 cities. Starlings clubs are found in America’s inner cities as well as on Navajo and Apache reservations in the Southwest.

The Starlings program indeed stands out in a sport largely nurtured in America’s well-to-do suburban neighborhoods—providing an opportunity for girls, ages 10 to18, to participate regardless of their socioeconomic background. Club dues are minimal and no girl is turned away because of inability to pay.

Over 100 Starlings have received college volleyball scholarships. The philosophy is a holistic one: competition is good but sports should be fun too. A Starling girl is also encouraged to develop all her talents; thus, an annual Literary/Art Contest is sponsored. There are many ways a teenage girl can take wing, given the chance.

To celebrate the Starlings 10th anniversary in 2006, a collection of essays, poems and art work has been selected from submissions to the 2005 competition. That year’s theme: “What Starlings Means to Me”.

As anyone will learn from this remarkable collection of works, being a Starling means a lot more than just playing volleyball

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

“Each athlete is encouraged to write about what the Starlings has meant to her...put the two together, fundraising and writing, and the result is this book. To anyone who asks, “Why should I support the Starlings?” Read this book, you’ll find out why.”—Karch Kiraly (three-time Olympic gold medalist)

Website: www.starlings.org

Product Details

• Paperback: 138 pages
• Publisher: iUniverse, Inc. (December 19, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0595377947
• ISBN-13: 978-0595377947
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,244,973 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Starlings Girls Soar in 10th Anniversary Collection, January 29, 2006

By 

M. Kelly (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Chance to Fly: Essays, Poems, and Art from Starlings Girls (Paperback)

Within the pages of this book, A Chance to Fly, there lies a separate universe, a world apart. The reader is allowed to tiptoe through the realm of the adolescent girl, without changing, disturbing, criticizing or rearranging a single thing. And what a rare privilege this is.

Starlings Volleyball Clubs USA is a national non-profit organization that provides opportunities from coast-to-coast to girls of every socio-economic stratum to play
club volleyball regardless of their zip code. Starlings celebrates its 10th anniversary with the publication of this book of poems, essays and art by the Starlings girls
themselves, deftly edited by Byron Shewman, a co-founder of the Starlings in 1996.

You will be deeply moved as you read page after page of the innermost thoughts of girls as irridescent and seemingly fragile as the small birds for which they were named but as resilient as the stars in the firmament. There are stories here that will break your heart, such as that of the only girl child of Vietnamese refugees, a victim of life-long verbal abuse from her family, who found volleyball and the
Starlings, which quite literally saved her life.

There are stories and poems from the Navajo reservations of Arizona, such as the one from Sherry Hudson of Tuba City, AZ, which begins poetically, with a recitation
of her ancient Navajo lineage, ". . . Bitterwater . . . Edgewater . . . Black Streak People . . . Towering House People . . . ."

There is the gritty, flashy poetry in the urban cadences and vernacular of Oakland, Philadelphia and New York. There are the memories of long-time coaches and club
directors, volunteers all, in the most magnanimous way.

In the beginning, the Starlings girls whose work is featured in this remarkable collection may have walked into a gym to try out for a volleyball team. What they found, in addition to their sport, was much the same as what Dorothy found on the yellow brick road to Oz, companions like themselves who have heart, courage and brains and friends who have become like family even when home sometimes seems
so very far away.

Support the Starlings. Buy this book.

5.0 out of 5 stars Insperational, January 10, 2006

By 

Amy Rouk "Avid Reader" (Baltimore, Maryland USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Chance to Fly: Essays, Poems, and Art from Starlings Girls (Paperback)

I found this book to be very insperational. I highly recommend this book for readers young and old. It will lift any spirit.

5.0 out of 5 stars A Chance To Fly, January 9, 2006

By 

Coach Young (Alameda, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Chance to Fly: Essays, Poems, and Art from Starlings Girls (Paperback)

This book is an excellent read for anyone who coaches, plays, or is a fan of volleyball.