Super Sporty Girls

There are many, many Australian girls who love sport and love reading about it. This book is targeted at them. Produced as an in-house publication, this book has no specific author but is recounted in the first person by an unnamed illustrated female character. She introduces eighteen Australian sportswomen who have excelled in their chosen field.

A wide variety of sports have been selected – both individual and team sports, and along with common activities such as netball and soccer, there are less well-known sportswomen such as kayaker, Jessica Fox and jockey, Michelle Payne.

Each double page is introduced by the narrator making a personal connection to the sport and identifying the featured sportswoman with a detail about them. On the righthand side of the page opening is a photograph of the athlete in action with a couple of sentences about the person and the attributes that they identify as essential to their sport and success.

This book has great capacity as a mentor text to show an unusual text format, and to link to informational text types. There is great opportunity to lead to further research about a selected sportswoman in order to build on this book to create a biographical text about inspiring sportspeople. Key vocabulary such as consistently, focusing, accuracy, determined, passionate, challenge, and perseverance are presented in a coloured font that stands out from the body of the text and draws attention to the importance of personal attributes that contribute to success.

It is wonderful to have a book such as this that showcases Australian sportswomen and is a way to inspire our girls to participate in sport.