Skateboarding

From Booklist
Reviewed with Liz Lark's Yoga.Gr. 4-8. Sterling introduced their Flowmotion series for adults last year, and this year, a spin-off series of the same name debuts for kids, using the same unique format: a continuous series of stop-action photographs that demonstrate activities, step-by-step. The children pictured in both volumes often seem younger than the book's target audience, and the introduction to Yoga-- with small print, gloomy statistics, sophisticated language, and instructions for guiding children through to poses--is less for children than adults. Skateboarding is more accessible; it has helpful safety tips, a glossary of skating terms, and a diagram of a skateboard's components. The strength of both titles is the excellent instructions. Beneath photographs that flow across each spread and show movements from start to finish, are text bars providing more detailed applications, including, in Yoga, essential tips on when to breathe. Younger children will probably need an adult's help to get through the texts, but these books offer outstanding visual introductions to their subjects for browsing or focused learning. Gillian Engberg
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Gr 3-5-Each of these titles offers a brief introduction to the history, equipment, basic techniques, styles, and stars. The presentations are superficial; for example, chapters on the legends of each sport offer head shots and a blurb about the awards earned by a handful of professional athletes. Each book includes a spread of limited information on the techniques for advanced tricks and a warning recommending that readers wear safety equipment. (However, not all of the athletes shown heeded this advice.) Different font types and sizes and numerous color photos with unusual angles make some of the layouts appear chaotic. This series is comparable in scope to the "Rad Sports" series (Rosen Central) and the "X-treme Outdoors" series (Children's). While there is high demand for titles on extreme sports, this series is supplemental at best.-Michael Giller, South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities, Greenville Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.


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