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Summary: Must read for parents and coaches of soccer kids
Review: The book describes the challenges and ups and downs associated with kids sports. I was caught up with the dynamics of the various personalities and some of their individual goals. What I loved most was the overall goal of the coach to challenge each child to break through their own wall and achieve personal growth along with the satisfaction of being part of a team. The decisions that some of these kids were confronted with will help them throughout life. I also loved the honesty regarding the problems each team whatever sport encounters at one time or another.
Rating:
Summary: A great book for parents and coaches
Review: The story of a season with its ups and downs, The Beautiful Game is great not just as a story about 16 girls and their coach, but also wonderful insight into the psyche of teenage girls. As a future teacher and coach, it gave me a lot of insight.
Rating:
Summary: A great book for parents and coaches
Review: The story of a season with its ups and downs, The Beautiful Game is great not just as a story about 16 girls and their coach, but also wonderful insight into the psyche of teenage girls. As a future teacher and coach, it gave me a lot of insight.
Rating:
Summary: If you love soccer, you'll love this book.
Review: This book is for anyone involved with soccer, especially parents that have kids playing on travel soccer teams. I could relate the stories in this book to my daughter's soccer team. Jon did a great job writing about the team's goals and their accomplishments. I would also recommend this book to parents and their kids that were considering getting involved with travel soccer. "The Beautiful Game" was very enjoyable to read. Jon thanks for writing this book.
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Summary: Very Inspiring and interesting
Review: This book was so awesome. I definatly recommend it. I'm on an under 14 team too and the girls in the book deal with issues that i'm dealing with too. READ THIS BOOK.
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Summary: Who says a book can't be important and a page turner, too?
Review: This is a soccer book, but so much more. It's a book that explores the coming of age of teenage girls, but it's even more than that. It is a celebration of what sports can do for our children and a revelation of what soccer means to our young women today.As a soccer fanatic, this book satisfied my thirst for soccer action, but it also helped me gain real insight into my daughter's teenage world. The soccer players in this book are led, often against their will at first, by a women coach who teaches them that the greatest lesson of sports is learned when making a personal and collective commitment to compete at the highest level. This is a can't miss book. You won't be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: teary eyed
Review: This is an excellent story that will have you wanting to skip ahead to find out how things turned out in the end. Author Jon Littman got very lucky when he picked a team to follow. A middle of the pack team turned into State Cup winners in one year under a new coach. There was no way the author could have known this when he started following them, however. He provides great insight into the minds of 14 year old girls, the pressures and problems of their lives and how it affects what they will become. This isn't just about soccer, it's about growing up, about the crucial middle school years when girls (and boys) form their self image. Who am I? Why am I here? How should I live my life? It isn't about becoming an All American athlete. It's about "why do it if you aren't going to do it 100%?" Many of us think that the barriers for women have all come down. But Littman shows that the big remaining barriers are those that women set for themselves. Model or athlete? Barbie doll or self confident leader? Littman's work left me a bit teary eyed by the second half of the book. I've seen the well meaning parents who think you are asking too much. Who expect perfection from the coach but not their child. Who don't really support their child's choice of sports. Littman has laid it all out for us to see, showing that what's happening with our children isn't all that different. I do have a few quibbles with Littman's work. Some of the more soccer literate would probably like to see a summary of the team's results in more of a box score format. I found it difficult to follow who was who, particularly in the beginning. Admittedly, a big challenge for the author when you have 20 leading characters. Even in the later chapters, a line up would have been valuable. I felt that the ending was a bit forced. Essentially, coach is upset with a big loss, parents yell at coach, end of book. After so much on going insight about how players felt, there was no bridge for the two months from Regionals to the fall high school season. What happened to Erin and her dad? Did she make the new team? Is she happy with her choice? Is her dad happy with his choice? Even at the end, there's a steller new player, Haley Stein. Where did she come from? Where was she playing before? Although Littman interviewed the players in depth, it appears he did not talk to Emiria in depth. How much of what she did was an act? A "game face" designed to get the soccer and personal transformation that had to take place? If nothing else, wanting all this additional information about the team is a testament to how caught up the reader becomes in their story. I left a lot of other books on the nightstand to finish this one in two days. It was worth it.
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Summary: I highly recommend this book for Youth Soccer Coaches!
Review: This was a book that I couldn't seem to put down. I have coached competitive soccer teams for a number of years, and this is the best work I have ever seen. It captures the essence of what the girls are thinking/feeling. There is such a fine line between pushing too hard, or not hard enough. A coach can only go with their heart and hope that it leads them true. Emiria seems to have been like all of us, you make mistakes as you gain experience, but you learn from them and go on. I recognized so many of my own players in the descriptions of the girls of Thunder. I think that this is a major charm of the book, that it rings so true. My congratulations to Mr. Littman, a truly fine work that I will read many times over the years, and that I will certainly recommend to everyone I know in sports.
Rating:
Summary: Inspiring, Amazing
Review: This was one of th most fantasic books I have read in a while. It show how deticated you have to be to go all out in a sport and how good you can get if you have a good coach. I read the book, and a year later I got a really tough coach. I was temted to quit the team because of the endless running but I remembered how much the coach in this book put the tea through and how far they got, and I kept with it. I have gotten really far and I am still on the team. This is the most wonderful and well written book about teen soccer out there.
Rating: 
Summary: An inspirational book of the realities of women's sports
Review: When I first started reading this book, i wasn't sure if I was going to like it. Then as I got into it, I couldn't put it own. As a 13 year old travel soccer player, it was right up my alley, yet I think all female athletes and even non athletes would enjoy this book. As you get into the book you begin to know the girls in the book and you begin to feel what they were going through. You realize, how hard athletes will work to achieve a goal, no matter what it takes. This book makes me want to go out and play my hardest and give my all, even if I don't want to because I know it will help me in the long run.
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