These themes will vary! It could be based off of some book mail I just received, pop culture, something personal to me, a headline from the news, a trend I noticed when I was buying books for my library system, etc. I hope you stick around to see all the themes and book recs I come up with!
Today’s Theme: Winter Olympic Sports!
“Feel the rhythm! Feel the rhyme! Get on up, its Olympics time!” Athletes have started traveling to Milan, Italy and I am stoked! While I’m not a huge winter sport fan, (TBH I’m not a Winter fan in general lol) its the Olympics and the idea of a huge sports event that has me excited. So of course I had to look into some Black characters that participate in Winter Olympic sports. In Skate it Till You Make It, Ari actually does go to the Olympics. She plays hockey for Great Britain. That was the number one thing I loved about it, the athlete was the FMC. And even with her toxic ex floating around, becoming captain at the last minute and having to deal with her besties who don’t know how to separate her being their captain vs bestie, she still went out on that ice and handled business. I do wish there was more time on the ice, but the time that they were playing, it was pretty cool. And really it was fine. With Drew being the press, it was really a nice kind of relationship. [This is Adult and is out today!]
And before y’all go there, this one is a hockey romance, but it’s not an Olympic story. This one is actually a Christian romance, so there is open discussions of prayer, church, and God. In this one Drew is a hockey player who gets injured during a game on the ice. His concussion was so bad it causes him to lose his eyesight for a time. (NOTE: There is a time that it seems he is saying there is a miraculous cure for his eyesight, when in reality, that was more than likely just the effects of the concussion too. They do cause problems with your eyesight that can be temporary or long term. I Googled it) So here we don’t get a lot of looks at him playing on the ice, but we do get to see him interacting in other ways like helping the team with getting some donors and more. I’m ok with Christian romance because I do believe in a higher power, but I also understand this isn’t for everyone. [This is Adult and is out today!]
Well, there you go! Here I’m just going to talk about why I grouped these two books together. I hope you enjoyed a look at this small part of the books. For a full synopsis of the book or to add it to your TBR, click the picture and it will take you to their Storygraph. The link on the caption will take you to it’s Goodreads.
Just in Case….
Just in case one of these isn’t up to par for you, here’s some more books that feature Black athletes in Winter Olympic sports!
Fearless Heart is a picture book bio of Surya Bonaly, the figure skater who back flipped on the ice at the Olympics. Marvelous Mabel is another picture book bio about Mabel Fairbanks who was the first Black athlete inducted into the US Figure Skating Hall of Fame. Although she was never an Olympian because systemic racism and segregation barred her from getting the rink time to qualify. Written on Ice is about a hockey player and figure skater trying to solve a mystery together. And Black Ice is an adult bio about the first Black NHL player back in 1982 when he played with the Buffalo Sabres.
Lastly…
Since it IS Black History Month, I wanted to talk about those IRL athletes that represented us in Winter sports. With all the stigma surrounding Black athletes in winter sports because of racism, and the winter sports places (arenas, rinks, slopes) being “all white spaces,” I wanted to make sure to shine some light on those that I hope to see in books one day. Vonetta Flowers was an American bobsledder. She became the first Black woman to win a gold medal in the Winter Olympics. Erin Jackson is a speed skater and Olympic gold medalist. Jackson is the first Black woman to win a gold in a Winter Olympic individual sport. She is headed back to the Olympics this year. And of course there’s Laila Edwards. She is a college hockey player who is set to be the first Black woman to represent the US in Olympic hockey. I’m so proud of them, like I’m their mom lol I can’t wait to cheer them on!
What about you? Do you watch the Olympics? Have you read any of these? Let me know in the comments!