Elle of the Ball
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- £9.49
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- £9.49
Publisher Description
From 2015 WNBA MVP, 2016 Olympic gold medalist, and global ambassador to the Special Olympics Elena Delle Donne comes the first novel in a brand-new middle grade series with as much heart as there is game.
Elle Deluca is a seventh grader who is tall—not just sort of tall. She’s six feet tall. And for a twelve-year-old girl, this means that her basketball team has high hopes for her changing positions and becoming their starting center. But a new position is not the only footwork she has to learn. Her class’s dance unit in gym is coming up, and that means she has to learn ballroom dance steps with a boy much shorter than her—and perform publically for a grade.
In the first book in WNBA MVP and Olympic gold medalist Elena Delle Donne’s Hoops series, Elle must figure out a way to remain herself when others want her to be someone else.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Delle Donne a professional basketball player, youth coach, and author of the memoir My Shot (which publishes simultaneously) taps into her knowledge of the game and her insight into aspiring players in this first book in the Hoops series. As basketball season opens, Elle Deluca has skyrocketed to a height of six feet and outgrown her clothes; she now towers over the seventh-grade boys, including her ballroom dancing partner for the upcoming cotillion. Rather than boosting her confidence as a basketball player, Elle's growth causes high anxiety: "I grew ten feet overnight and became a total klutz," she says, and she suspects that her coach has assigned her to the demanding position of starting center because of her stature, rather than her skill. While avoiding melodrama, Delle Donne humorously portrays Elle's adjustment to her changing body and her increasing self-confidence and positivity. Play-by-play basketball action, friendship subplots, and the inspiration Elle draws from her older sister (who is deaf and blind and has autism and cerebral palsy) round out this engaging novel. Ages 8 12.)
