Shannon Miller: My Child, My Hero [Hardcover]

Claudia Miller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 1999

Shannon Miller has truly lived the American Dream-its drama and disappointment, its hope and joy. Written by her mother, this profusely illustrated story of Shannon’s journey to Olympic fame is also the portrait of a family working together to help a child achieve a difficult, challenging goal.

The ultimate thrill for an athlete is to stand on a podium and, with the world as witness, to accept an Olympic medal. In Shannon Miller: My Child, My Hero, Claudia Miller helps us understand the dedication and hard work preceding that moment of Olympic glory. Claudia presents intimate details of Shannon’s life, her triumphs and her crushing defeats. She also shares the ways she and her husband, Ron, handled both the tears and the happiness, as well as how they dealt with Shannon’s siblings, Tessa and Troy, and her teachers and coaches.

We journey with the Miller family through Shannon’s training and achievements, struggles and injuries, to her dramatic comeback. In the 1992 Olympics, she won five medals. An in 1996, despite media declarations that she was no longer competitive, Shannon performed brilliantly-leading the women’s gymnastics team to first place and winning a gold medal for her performance on the balance beam.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Shannon Miller, multi-medal-winning gymnast at both the 1992 Barcelona and 1996 Atlanta Olympics, is the subject of this memoir written by her mother. While such a book could have become overbearing, Miller is instead gracious toward rivals, teammates, and the many who helped Shannon and temperate when discussing spats with coaches. In Kerri Strug's autobiography Landing on My Feet (LJ 11/1/97), readers came to understand a gymnast's terrific drive and sacrifices. In this book, we see how these sacrifices can affect an athlete's parents and siblings. Also interesting are the Millers' religious beliefs?as Christian Scientists, mother and daughter used prayer and the writings of Mary Baker Eddy to make decisions, even medical ones. Despite Shannon's fame and achievements, there is not a trace of superiority complex here. A solid addition to gymnastics collections in public libraries.?Kathryn Ruffle, Coll. of New Caledonia Lib., Prince George, BC
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

A proud and devoted mother's overdone portrait of her celebrated gymnast daughter's trials and triumphs. Claudia Miller relates her daughter's progress from jungle-gym-climbing toddler to leader of the first US women's gymnastic team to bring home the Olympic gold. For those who don't know a double twisting Yurchenko from a piked full twisting double back, the particulars of Shannon Miller's gymnastic feats in innumerable competitions quickly become tedious. Of more interest to parents of an exceptional child is the story of the Miller family's efforts to keep one daughter's striking success from having negative effects on her older sister and younger brother. With Shannon's success came tension between her parents and her controlling and demanding coach (by this time, Claudia Miller had trained to become a gymnastics judge, and some second-guessing of the coach was probably inevitable) and difficult decisions concerning agents and money. Recurrent injuries were another problem, especially since the author is a Christian Scientist and her husband a Baptist; for Shannon, Christian Science practitioners and prayer were combined with consultations with physicians, medical treatments, surgery, and physical therapy as needed. Rather surprisingly, Miller barely mentions the controversial weight issue in her discussions of her daughter's health, despite the fact that at age 15 Shannon weighed only 76 pounds. Even allowing for motherly prejudice, the portrait of the young gymnast that emerges is one any parent would be proud of: an outstanding athlete who is also a top student, and someone who makes exceptional demands on herself but is at the same time thoughtful and considerate of others. As an Olympic gymnast, Shannon Miller had the eyes of the world on her, but this overly technical treatment wont put her on the bestseller podium where fellow gymnast Dominique Moceanu once stood. (8 color, 42 b&w illustrations, not seen) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press; First Edition edition (April 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0806131101
• ISBN-13: 978-0806131108
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #306,342 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #31 in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Individual Sports > Gymnastics

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good book..., December 21, 2000

By 

Christopher J. Martin (Alexandria, VA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Shannon Miller: My Child, My Hero (Hardcover)

Overall, I think this book is a better book than the one authored by Shannon herself. Yes, it is a bit overdone in spots, but any mother who loves her child is going to overdo things a bit. I also think it's easy to discount the overdramatized and over done things while still enjoying a good read. Shannon's relationships and not so perfect side of life as a world class gymnast are also better discribed here than in Shannon's book, the Miller world doesn't always seem so eerily perfect in this book. I think it's probably as well done and as "objective" of a portrait as any mother could do for her daughter. As for the weight issues and other things, nobody in gymnastics truly ever talks about those things, and most don't find a problem with them. I didn't expect Shannon's mother too either, and wasn't suprised when she didn't discuss the subject.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Could Have Offered More, July 23, 2009

By 

pghschooltexts - See all my reviews

This review is from: Shannon Miller: My Child, My Hero (Hardcover)

This book was disappointing to me as gymnastics fan, and I thought it could have offered a lot more. It was interesting to read a book written by the mother of a gymnast, but while Claudia Miller certainly has a lot to be proud of, I got really tired of her bragging about Shannon. The way she writes simply seemed arrogant. For example, when she talks about a competition that Shannon won, she has to point out that Shannon "easily" won it or how far ahead of the other gymnasts she was. Eventually, reading this book was like listening to an annoying soccer mom talking endlessly about her star player. Then after the bragging, Claudia Miller didn't offer a lot of insight into the work and dedication behind Shannon's accomplishments, which is what I was hoping to read about. She also talks a lot about herself in the book. She throws in subtle criticisms of Bela Karoyli while dismissing Steve Nunno's sometime infantile behavior as mere "differences." She belittled Kerri Strug's accomplishment at the 1996 Olympics because it took the spotlight off of Shannon. Also, there were many minute errors throughout the book, both grammatically and factually.

I really respect Shannon Miller's accomplishments and think she was a fantastic gymnast, and I thought this book would offer a great story about how hard she worked and the sacrifices she made to achieve what she did. However, this book lacked that type of a human interest story, and it was pretty boring. As other people have commented already, this book is basically a list of Shannon's impressive accomplishments. While it's clear that she worked hard and persevered, it's difficult to relate to her or feel inspired by what she did. There are other gymnastics books that I have enjoyed much more than this one because they offer more insight into the journeys of the gymnasts with a writing style that is not so arrogant.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A not-too-informative bio, January 28, 2002

By 

"camlyndc" (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Shannon Miller: My Child, My Hero (Hardcover)

Although I'm a huge gymnastics fan, this book got boring rather quickly. Most interesting to me was the level of dedication which Shannon exhibited at such an early age---Claudia Miller sounds almost breathless in her recitation of the awards Shannon racked up. Unfortunately, this is little more than a blow-by-blow account of Shannon's competitions---it's far more interesting to watch them on TV than read about them! The author fails to show us anything deeper than Shannon's gymnastics and doesn't follow through with what could be interesting information (for example, the relationship between Miller and her coach as well as how Shannon's siblings dealt with her fame).

Most shocking to me was the unbelievably juvenile and controlling attitude of Steve Nunno (her coach)---Claudia Miller simply dismisses his irrational actions, often resorting to "we eventually smoothed it over".

While a dedicated Miller fan might love this book, the rest of you might just want to skip it.