Four children’s books that give you a taste for sport

Teenage loves

The first time Damien saw Léna, he took her for a boy with short hair. This is also why he went to speak to her, otherwise he would never have dared. But it was thus, upon falling into her mint-colored eyes, that Damien fell in love. “But then they fell madly in love. Love at first sight, straight away, like in the movies!” It was the first day back in fourth grade. A day that Rudy, Damien’s best friend, would never soon forget.

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Right away, Rudy was jealous of Léna, the perfect girl with beautiful blonde hair cut in a pixie cut. Very quickly, he learned to hate her. Especially after the middle school cross country when he already imagined himself on the podium, in the photo, with the medal around his neck. Nothing went as planned. Same after the poetry competition. “I had made an effort, she refused the truce… too bad for her. I was going to find a way to hurt him. Very bad. And at the same time, I would get my friend back, my pride.” An explosive novel about friendship and adolescent feelings.

Ten sports news

Who said reading wasn’t a sport? For its 10th anniversary, the Partir en livre festival has entrusted ten emblematic authors of children’s literature, from Christelle Dabos to Jean-Christophe Tixier, including Claire Castillon, Cécile Roumiguière and Philippe Lechermeier, to name a few, to writing of ten unpublished texts gathered around the theme of sport. And, we quickly see, writing requires endurance, a sportsman’s mentality! At Clémentine Beauvais, little Victoire is a born commentator, certainly, but also born with five left feet. In Susie Morgenstern, the character of Ninon is not left out. She is incapable of the slightest somersault! It’s very simple, she considers sport as another planet and athletes as aliens! So is it possible that the sport doesn’t like them? After all, “the love of sport cannot be reduced to physical practice”… Here are ten moving and joyful news. Enough to give hope and why not even awaken vocations!

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A born boxer

“It’s the story of an emergency. Of a meteoric rise.»Thus begins Alice Babin’s book, illustrated by Camille de Cussac, on Mohamed Ali, born Cassius Clay. Black, Muslim, descendant of slaves, the child grew up in a segregationist society. Children his age are being killed for the color of their skin. Life is a struggle, a fight, a championship. So you might as well win it. “From an isolated neighborhood in Kentucky, Muhammad Ali will become a legend.” The boy discovers boxing, “space of all possibilities”. He gets up at 5 a.m., trains every day and wins every match. History is being written… “I will be the greatest”, we read, as Mohamed Ali hits a red punching bag. And the story accelerates as he is selected for the Olympic Games in Rome in 1960. We know the rest… Here is a beautiful introduction to the life of the boxer whose short story is linked to that of American civil rights. A punchy book!

This mysterious body!

Why should body temperature always be 37°C? Why do we forget pleasant things rather than unpleasant ones? Why do we sleep? These are a series of questions that you have probably already asked yourself and which are answered in this informative book. In The Mystery of the human body, illustrated by Floor Rieder, author Jan Paul Schutten dissects the thousand and one particularities of our body. Did you know, for example, that before you were even born, you had faced 300 million opponents? That the average adult’s body is made up of approximately 37 trillion cells? Or that an adult human being is made up of approximately 18 kg of carbon, the equivalent of a pot of nitrogen jam, 50 liters of water, phosphorus in sufficient quantity to burn more or less 2000 matches, an iron nail and around twenty other substances? This is a book that will delight curious young and old alike.

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