Wrestling

“These four additions to the My First Sports series provide quick introductions to athletic pastimes. The series format features generously sized photos, each accompanied by a few sentences of large-print text, and all highlighted with plenty of colors in the photos, backgrounds, and borders. Each book touches on a sport’s history and equipment or dress. In Cheerleading, Green introduces the activity’s purpose, stunts, routines, and competitions. Fishing explains the use of bobbers and lures as well as rods and reels. Karate discusses training in this martial art, while the photos illustrate stances, strikes, and blocks as well as the ranking of different-colored belts. Wrestling explains the basic rules, moves, and scoring of the sport. While the illustrations in the volumes on cheerleading and wrestling show athletes in their teens and early twenties, those in Fishing and Karate focus more on younger kids learning these sports. Each book concludes with a glossary, brief bibliography, and directions for accessing the publisher’s “factsurfer” website. Although the reading level is more challenging than one might expect from a reader series (even one designated by the publisher as “Level 4: early fluent/fluent”), the books’ topics, colorful design elements, and action photos will appeal to many children.”