Children’s Book Review: National Geographic Kids Everything Sports and Funny Fill-In

EVERYTHING SPORTS
All the Photos, Facts, and Fun to Make you Jump!

By: Eric Zweig with Shalise Manza Young

Published: March 8, 2016

Publisher: National Geographic Kids

Non-Fiction

With the 2016 Rio Olympics starting this evening, there is a lot of excitement in the air about sports. Watching the Olympics is a great way to get kids excited about sports and introducing them to the wide variety of sports that are offered.  I’m sure tonight’s opening ceremony will be like nothing we have ever seen. Over the next several days, I hope you can find time to share the Olympics excitement with your child…rooting for your favorite team or learning about a sport you don’t know anything about. That is why there is no better time to tell you about these books from National Geographic Kids.

EVERYTHING SPORTS offers vivid photography, bullet explanations, as well as facts and tidbits of information, to teach your child about their favorite sport or maybe one they have never heard of before.  This isn’t a book that just shares the rules of the game, but more a whole picture of sports….comparing professional play with a pick-up game in your neighborhood, looking at what it takes to be a champion, and debunking some common myths about sports.

I loved learning about the particulars of balls in different sports. I’ve recently become a bowler and had no idea what bowling balls were made of until reading this book.  This book doesn’t bog kids down with overwhelming facts but gives you the basics in amongst awesome photography to keep kids interested. The pages are thick and make it possible for even the youngest reader to flip through without damaging the book. There are also several quizzes in the book so readers can test their knowledge. It would be fun for the kids to quiz their parents on what they know before reading the book. There is even a referee quiz where you can see if you make the right call.

Shalise Manza Young shares her story of being a high school athlete and how one event pointed her in the direction of being a sports journalist. Her story teaches a lesson on how your worst moment can lead to something even better.

I appreciated the final article at the end of the book talking about the importance of sports and the benefits it can offer kids and adults. It is important to take sports seriously, especially as an athlete, but if it isn’t fun, then it really isn’t worth it. It is certainly exciting to attend a professional sporting event and even though these athletes spend hours every day training and working on their game, they wouldn’t be out there if it wasn’t fun.

If you have a hockey player, a gymnast, a martial artist, a go-cart racer, or any sport in between, this is a fun book to share with them because as a parent, you’ll enjoy it too.

Eric Zweig – source

By the age of ten Eric Zweig was already a budding sports fanatic who was filling his school news books with game reports instead of current events. Eric’s first book, HOCKEY NIGHT IN THE DOMINION OF CANADA (1992), was a historical novel set in the early days of professional hockey. He has been working with Dan Diamond and Associates, consulting publisher to the National Hockey League, since 1996. As a freelance writer, Eric is the author or co-author of many non-fiction sports books for adults and children. He is a member of the Society for International Hockey Research and the Society for American Baseball Research. A former member of the Toronto Blue Jays grounds crew, he still has a champagne bottle from the club’s first American League East Division title celebration in 1985. For more on Zweig, check out his website, HERE.

To purchase a copy of EVERYTHING SPORTS, click the photo below:

 FUNNY FILL-IN
My Gold Medal Adventure

Published: May 10, 2016

Publisher: National Geographic Kids

Non-Fiction

If your child likes making up stories, this book is for them. It’s a great addition to celebrating the Olympics and will give them something to do during all those commercials or while waiting for the next event.

FUNNY FILL-IN offers full-color pages with silly antics to encourage your child to create fun stories about different Olympic events like archery, synchronized swimming, or soccer. The book even offers helpful reminders of the certain types of speech they are looking for. For example, the ask for an adjective and your child can look if they need a reminder of what an adjective is. Then it states that it needs an adjective ending in “est” so that the story reads right, like “friendliest”.

With twenty-two different fill-in stories, this will keep your kids busy and help them work on their vocabulary without them even realizing it. We kept these types of books in the car while our kids were growing up. It was an activity they could do together and kept them busy while driving to our next destination. We always had a good laugh when they got to read the story they created out loud to everyone in the van.

I love the themes relating to different Olympic sports and they will even teach your child a bit about the sport while having fun with the story. I also think it’s a great idea that the types of words needed are listed on the left page with the photo while the story is on the right page. That allows the reader to come up with the list of words without spoiling the story until it all comes together.

To purchase a copy of FUNNY FILL-IN: My Gold Medal Adventure, click the photo below:

I will be linking up this review with Booking Mama’s Kid Konnection. Every Saturday she offers a link-up for other bloggers to share their posts related to YA and Children’s Books. To see those posts, click HERE. 

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Thanks to the publisher for sending a copy of these books for the purpose of this review. This review is my honest opinion. If you choose to purchase these books through the above links, I may receive a small commission without you having to pay a cent more for your purchase. Thanks for supporting SincerelyStacie.com.