Top 25 Gymnastics Skills, Tips, and Tricks

* Reviews *

This title is part of a six-book series on standard American sports— with other titles covering baseball, basketball, football, hockey, and soccer—presenting twenty-five informative points in forty-eight pages. Brief paragraphs, boxes with facts, tips, or historical information and photos of major stars or action snapshots cover the basics of each sport. A one-page glossary of main terms, a short list of similar books, several Internet addresses, and an index complete the coverage. Savage faces a difficult task in combining coverage of womens four events and mens six events within the format dictated by the series. He wisely chooses to focus on basic skills and practice. Gymnastics is a sport best demonstrated by trained coaches rather than learned from text in a book. Savage properly cautions young gymnasts to attempt advanced elements only with supervision. Only five out of twenty-five photos are of men and a teenage girl is on the cover perhaps unintentionally indicating the book will appeal more to girls. There is only one sequence of photos showing three steps in performing a push-up. The last section, Preparing to Compete, briefly discusses protective gear, includes a paragraph on nutrition and another on stretching, a page on strength training, and a final two paragraphs on conditioning. The only mention of a trampoline is a historical note in a sidebar yet many gyms and backyards have trampolines for building skills and stamina. Consider this introductory coverage a supplemental purchase., Children's Literature