Customer Reviews

A Very Young Gymnast

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Jill Krementz' "A Very Young Gymnast" is one of the best of her "Very Young" books. It follows a real young girl through her training schedule and to an international gymnast demonstration. The spunky young gymnast is beautifully photographed in black and white and the text is written in her voice. It is in simple but not condescending language and so this book will be treasured for years to come. It is especially geared toward the 5 to 10 year old range but will be treasured into adulthood. I highly recommend this for any young person but specifically for the aspiring gymnast.

This is an intriguing story about a very young gymnast. Children become mesmerized with the photographs and entranced with the little girl's dreams and successes. It is a great way for little girls to live vicariously, as not many have the ability to excel in gymnastics. It may be a bit extreme for young readers to understand the sacrifices required for such a level of competition, but it is demonstrated in a way that readers can experience the experience.

This is a wonderful book about gymnastics. It has lots of pictures. It's about a 10 year old gymnast who has aspirations to be in the olympics. It shows how she trains. The pictures are in black & white. Not only does it contains pictures of her, but also other gymnasts are here also. Nadia, Bart Conner & Kurt Thomas and more.

First published in 1978, it's a little dated-but it shows gymnastics as it once was. Very nice!

I got this book when I was 10 years old. Every once in a while I take it out again and look at it. While it may be "dated" in some sense such as going to see Nadia and Olga, and the equipment - note the WOODEN Balance Beam! :) It is still a good narrative of what a gymnast goes through. The fact that younger gymnasts may not know who Nadia and Olga are is quite amazing and perhaps this is a good read for those tikes who think that gymnastics started with Shannon Miller! :) A great read for older gymnasts looking back on the "good old days" and young gymnasts who never knew that there was anything but spring floors and padded beams.

This is an excellent book for young, aspiring gymnasts. Told in a first-person narative, it truly lets the reader feel like she is participating. Text is easy to read and simple for a younger child to understand, yet sophisticated enough that a child interested in gymnastics will stay involved. Wonderful, emotional photos lead the way through the story. The lone problem is that the book is rather dated. There is a sequence where the narator goes to a gymnastics meet and is thrilled to see Nadia and Olga, gymnasts that this generation may not be familiar with. Otherwise, a great story.

This book is charming. And to those who think this generations gymnasts don't know who Nadia or Olga are then you guys haven't been to many gym clubs lately-the best often have posters of the great Nadia Comaneci, the first gymnast in history to score a perfect ten at the Olympics (the newest Olympic Champion Carly Patterson, and her peers have all talked about Nadia in interviews for any who have followed gymnastics on tv these past four years.) Just like most sports fanatics gymnasts do their homework and todays gymnasts including myself DO know who Nadia and Olga were. Just like baseball fans know who Babe Ruth was, and so on. Those two great legends are a part of gym lore.

This book is supposed to be written from the point of view of the ten year old gymnast and the language is realistic and overall the book is lots of fun.

This book and others from the 'A Very Young' series are wonderful and I was obsessed with them as a child. The children featured were (are) from privileged backgrounds and had all of the opportunities that an average kid like me could only ever have dreamed of. I have enjoyed finding out how adult life turned out for these kids and, not surprisingly, most are high achievers and very successful.

I bought this book second hand 6 weeks ago as a gift for my daughter who will turn 7 on Friday (18th March 2011). Sadly, it doesn't look like it'll arrive in time for her birthday. All of my online purchases from other companies have made it from the US to Australia in a matter of days, so 6 weeks is unacceptable and it isn't the first time Amazon has been slow. I will go direct to the book suppliers and bypass Amazon for future purchases and would encourage other shoppers to do the same.

This was an interesting book but it was not all that well written. It seemed like Jill Krementz wrote down Torrance's words without seeing how they would look on the page as opposed to how they sounded in conversations with her. I've read some of the other A Very Young.... books and have similar observations about the writing-- Ms. Krementz's talents must lie more in photography.