The Olympics

David Goldblatt and Johnny Acton’s How to Watch the Olympics: The Essential Guide to the Rules, Statistics, Heroes, and Zeroes of Every Sport (Penguin Books, 2012) has everything from the words to the Olympic Anthem to a list of discontinued Olympic events (no more bike polo or croquet), plus rules, statistics, and interesting histories for each of the 29 summer sports. The book of choice should your kids demand to know the width of a balance beam or the origin of the shuttlecock.

Brad Herzog’s G is for Gold Medal (Sleeping Bear Press, 2011) is an Olympics alphabet book in which each (alphabetical) Olympic feature is accompanied by a short rhyme and – for fact-lovers - side paragraphs in smaller print with detailed explanations. A, for example, stands for “Ancient Greece and Athens/that’s our first letter – A/The Olympics began then and there/long ago and far away.” For ages 4-9.

For fans of Mary Pope Osborne’s Magic Tree House series, Hour of the Olympics (Random House, 1998) sends Jack and Annie back in time to ancient Greece where they visit the first Olympic games. For ages 5 and up.

Ancient Greece and the Olympics by Mary Pope Osborne and Natalie Pope Boyce (Random House Books for Young Readers, 2004) is the nonfiction companion to Hour of the Olympics, a reader-friendly, illustrated, 128-page compendium of information on ancient Greek geography, history, religion, daily life, culture, and the Olympics games, then and now. For ages 5 and up.

Michael Ford’s You Wouldn’t Want to Be a Greek Athlete (Franklin Watts, 2004) follows the life of a young Greek boy through training and participation in the Olympic games. Set in the mid-5^th century BCE, the 32-page book is a mix of humor and history, illustrated with cartoons, labeled diagrams, and informational sidebars. One of the You Wouldn’t Want To…series. For ages 8-12.

For those who think they might want to be a Greek athlete anyway, see Jacqueline Morley’s 32-page How to Be an Ancient Greek Athlete (National Geographic Children’s Books, 2008). Learn all about the ancient athletic training process and take the quiz at the end to see if you’d qualify for the Games. (Girls need not apply.) For ages 8-12.

Matt Christopher’s The Olympics: Legendary Sports Event (Little, Brown, 2008) is a 112-page history of the Games, beginning with the ancient Greeks. Various chapters cover new traditions in the modern Olympics, the Olympics in time of war, protests and the Olympics, memorable moments, and more. For ages 8-12.

Tony Perrottet’s The Naked Olympics: The True Story of the Ancient Games (Random House, 2004) is a thoroughly entertaining non-fiction account of the original Olympics, once a Woodstock-like extravaganza attended by 40,000 spectators from all over the Greek world. For teenagers and adults.

Archaeologist Neil Faulkner’s A Visitor’s Guide to the Ancient Olympics (Yale University Press, 2012) – written in the style of a travel guide - is an enthralling and info-packed overview of the ancient games in all their glory and squalor, with color illustrations and a helpful list of “Must-See Monuments.” For teenagers and adults.

From PBS, The Real Olympics (2004) is a documentary history of the ancient and modern games. See https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00028G4WI.

In poet X.J. Kennedy’s Elympics (Philomel, 1999), 13 short poems and a cast of adorable and athletic elephants celebrate the events of the Olympic games, including skiing, skating, sprinting, and diving – plus hard work and good sportsmanship. For age 4-8.

By Bob Knotts, The Summer Olympics (Childrens Press, 2000) is a photo-illustrated account for ages 5-8. In similar format, see The Winter Olympics by Larry Dane Brimner.

By skater Kurt Browning, A is for Axel (Sleeping Bear Press, 2005) is an illustrated alphabet of ice skating in short rhymes. Notes in the margins provide more detailed information. For ages 6-9.

Nick Hunter’s The Winter Olympics (Capstone, 2013) is a general 32-page overview of the Olympics, covering basic events (plus a chapter on the Paralympics). Illustrated with color photos. For ages 7-10.

The Winter Olympic Sports series (Crabtree Publishing) covers them all, in a series of 32-page, photo-illustrated books. Titles include Figure Skating (Joseph Gustaitis), Alpine and Freestyle Skiing (Kylie Burns), Ice Hockey and Curling (Robin Johnson), and Speed Skating (Joseph Gustaitis). For ages 8 and up.

Swimmer Michael Phelps’s picture book How to Train with a T. Rex and Win 8 Gold Medals (Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, 2009) describes – with catchy analogies – just what it took to train for the 2008 Olympics, at which Phelps won a phenomenal eight gold medals. For example, he trained for six years (“That’s a kindergartener’s whole life! That’s the same as 42 dog years!”), swam 60,000 meters a week for a total of 12,480 miles (like swimming three times the length of the Great Wall of China), and developed legs strong enough to lift one Tyrannosaurus rex + 10 velociraptors. A nice starting point for some creative Olympics-based math. For ages 5-9.

Olympic soccer champion Mia Hamm’s cartoonishly illustrated Winners Never Quit (HarperCollins, 2006) is a charming pseudo-autobiographical tale about a little girl (named Mia) who loves playing soccer, but hates to lose – so much so that she throws a fit and quits when she fails to score. Friends and family, however, help her learn that playing the game is about love of the sport and cooperation more than about winning and losing. In this winning-obsessed day, a nice lesson for ages 4-7.

In Rachel Isadora’s watercolor-illustrated picture book Sophie Skates (Scholastic, 2002), eight-year-old Sophie dreams of becoming a professional ice skater. The book follows Sophie in her weekly skating lessons; readers learn about skating equipment, moves, competitions, and the hard work and practice it takes to be a champion. For ages 4-8.

In Linda Bailey’s The Best Figure Skater in the Whole Wide World (Kids Can Press, 2003), Lizzy is determined to become a champion figure skater – but when her skating class prepares to perform “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” at the upcoming winter festival, Lizzy is cast as a tree. For ages 5-8.

Ann Malaspina’s Touch the Sky (Albert Whitman & Company, 2011) is a free-verse picture-book biography of high jumper Alice Coachman who, in 1948, became the first African-American woman to win an Olympic gold medal. (“Alice Coachman raced/down the dirt road/bare feet flying,/long legs spinning,/braids flapping/in the wind…/LEAP!”) Included in an Author’s Note are photos of the real Alice and her teammates. For ages 5-9.

David A. Adler’s America’s Champion Swimmer (Sandpiper, 2005) is a picture-book biography of Olympic gold medalist Gertrude Ederle who, in 1926, also became the first woman to swim the English Channel. For ages 6-9.

Wilma Rudolph, star of Kathleen Krull’s gorgeously illustrated 44-page biography Wilma Unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph Became the World’s Fastest Woman (Sandpiper, 2000), was born in Tennessee in 1940, youngest in a family of twenty children. At the age of five, she had polio and was expected never to walk again – but through sheer determination, she not only walked, but ran, and so well that, in the 1960 Olympics, she became the first woman to win three gold medals. An inspirational tale for ages 7-12.

In the red, white, and blue Childhood of Famous Americans series, M.M. Eboch’s Jesse Owens: Young Record Breaker (Aladdin, 2008) is a fictionalized chapter biography of the childhood of African-American runner Jesse Owens, who overcame racism and poverty to win four gold medals in the 1936 Olympics, held in Hitler’s Germany. The book is dedicated to “anyone who refuses to give up.” For ages 7-10.

In the same series, also see Jo Harper’s Wilma Rudolph: Young Runner (Aladdin, 2004) and Guernsey Van Riper’s Jim Thorpe: Olympic Champion (Aladdin, 1986).

Noel Streatfeild’s Skating Shoes (Yearling, 2009), Harriet’s doctor prescribes skating to help her recover from an illness, and soon Harriet makes friends with orphan Lalla, training to be a skating champion, and discovers her own talent on the rink. One of the wonderful Shoes series, originally published in the 1930s and 40s, about children in the performing arts. For ages 8-12.

The protagonist of Donna Freitas’s novel Gold Medal Summer (Arthur A. Levine, 2012) is thirteen-year-old gymnast Joey Jordan, determined to be a gold medal winner, who struggles with not-always-easy relationships with her coach, friends, and family, and begins a romance with old friend (now suddenly cute boy) Tanner. For ages 10 and up.

In Freitas's Gold Medal Winter (Scholastic, 2014), Esperanza Flores of the Olympic ice skating team deals with sudden fame, mean-spirited teammates, budding romance (with a hockey player?), and a passionate desire to win. For ages 10-14.

In John Feinstein’s Rush for the Gold (Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2012), one of a series of sports-based mysteries starring teenaged journalists Steven Thomas and Susan Carol Anderson, Susan – a champion swimmer – is competing at the London Olympic Games. Stevie, however, begins to suspect that someone is trying to rig the swimming competitions, and soon he and Susan Carol have joined forces to solve the mystery. For ages 10 and up.

By Tommie Smith, Derrick Barnes, and Dawud Anyabwile, Victory. Stand! (Norton Young Readers, 2022), is an award-winning graphic novel account of an iconic moment in sports history when Olympic medalists Smith and Carlos took a stand against racial injustice. For ages 12 and up.

Rachel Ignotofsky's Women in Sports (Ten Speed Press, 2017) is a gorgeously designed collection of 50 short biographies of great female athletes. For ages 9-12.

In Laurent de Brunhoff’s Babar’s Celesteville Games (Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2011), Babar, the green-suited king of the elephants, and family are hosting the Worldwide Games – and in the midst of all the exciting athletic activity, daughter Flora falls in love with Coriander, a pole-vaulter from the distant country of Mirza. Despite some initial struggles with cultural differences (mother Celeste worries that Cory has small ears; Cory’s parents wish he’d picked a nice girl from Mirza), the book ends with a happy international wedding. For ages 4-6.

In (Jolly) Roger Bradfield’s The Pickle-Chiffon Pie Olympics (Purple House Press, 2001), lovely Princess Sierra is home from Princess College and her father, the king, decides to hold an athletic competition to decide who will win her hand in marriage. The Olympics, 14th-century-style, involve dragon wrestling, a giant climb, a moat swim, and a discus throw involving pickle-chiffon pies. This is the sequel to the equally hilarious Pickle-Chiffon Pie (originally published in 1967, re-issued in 2004). Wacky fun for ages 4-7.

By Sharon and Deborah McElmeel, Authors in the Pantry (Libraries Unlimited, 2006) contains a recipe for pickle-chiffon pie.

James Stevenson’s 56-page chapter book The Mud Flat Olympics (Greenwillow, 1994) is the funny and delightful story of an all-animal Olympics, featuring such events as the Deepest Hole contest (Kimberly, a mole, claims to have burrowed to China), the All-Snail High Hurdle, and the Smelliest Skunk competition. For ages 5-9.

In Meg Clibbon and Lucy Clibbon’s The Fairyland Olympics (Zero to Ten, 2008), the denizens of the Enchanted Forest decide to hold their own version of the Olympic games, and soon all are involved, from giants and dragons to princesses, herb fairies, and gourmet goblins. The lovely illustrations feature picture maps of such Fairyland locations as the Misty Mountain, Arboreal Grotto, Swamp (for Troll dancing), and Sea Palace. An appendix has suggestions for hosting your own garden-party Olympics, instructions for making winners’ coronets, and a recipe for a healthy energy drink. For ages 5 and up.

Rene Goscinny’s Asterix graphic series – fans of Tintin will love it – is set in Roman-occupied Gaul, with an hilarious cast of characters, among them Asterix (a small, but cunning, Gaulish warrior), his best friend Obelix (a menhir-delivery man, fond of roast boar), Getafix (the village druid), Cacofonix (the unspeakable bard), Vitalstatistix, red-bearded chief of the tribe, and a host of luckless Roman legionaries. In Asterix at the Olympic Games (Orion, 2004), all the men of the Gaulish tribe, fortified with Getafix’s strength-inducing magic potion, set off for Greece to compete in the Olympics. Their chief rival: the muscle-bound Roman, Gluteus Maximus. For ages 10 and up.

The STEM in the Summer Olympics series by Jenny Fretland VanVoorst (Jump!, Inc.) covers the science of summer Olympic sports for ages 6-9. Various titles include The Science Behind Volleyball, The Science Behind Cycling, The Science Behind Water Sports, and The Science Behind Gymnastics.

Sean Connolly’s The Book of Wildly Spectacular Sports Science (Workman, 2016) is a collection of great experiments for sports-loving scientists ages 9-12. Learn about everything from bouncing trampolines to flipping snowboards and flying frisbees.

Daniel Tatarsky’s Infographic Guide to Sports (Cassell, 2014) is a wonderful collection of informative diagrams (starting with “If the Gold Standard Were Gold Medals.” For ages 9 and up.

David Epstein’s The Sports Gene (Portfolio, 2014), subtitled “Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance,” tackles the question of nature vs. nurture when it comes to sports. A fascinating read for teens and adults.

By Shane Frederick, Hockey: The Math of the Game (Sports Illustrated Kids, 2011) covers it all: scoring, averages, percentages, and how to calculate how much water it takes to fill an ice rink. For ages 10-14.

13 Olympic Crafts for Kids instructions for making Olympic torches, rings, salt-dough medals, and Greek-style paper laurel wreaths, suitable for crowning Olympic victors.