Billie Jean!
How Tennis Star Billie Jean King Changed Women's Sports
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
A fun and inspiring picture book biography of tennis legend and women's rights activist Billie Jean King.
From award-winning author Mara Rockliff and New York Times-bestselling illustrator Elizabeth Baddeley comes this extraordinary picture book about one little girl who loved sports and grew up to be one of the greatest and best-known tennis players of all time.
Anything Billie Jean did, she did it ALL THE WAY. When she ran, she ran fast. When she played, she played hard. As a top women's tennis player, Billie Jean fought for fairness in women's sports, and when she faced off against Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes, the most famous tennis match in history, she showed the world that men and women--and boys and girls--are equal on and off the court.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"Anything Billie Jean did, she did it ALL THE WAY." This intensity is a recurring motif in Rockliff's tale of the early life of tennis player Billie Jean King, born in 1943. From a childhood in which tennis was presented as the only sport for girls, to her ultimate triumph in the legendary "Battle of the Sexes" against Bobby Riggs in 1973, King's career was shaped by defying sexist expectations. By centering these many obstacles, Rockliff reveals the pervasive dimensions of the prejudices King faced, heightening her continued perseverance and eventual victories. And the firmly defined lines of Baddeley's illustrations aptly evoke King's steely determination through frustrations and joys. Though the book ends with the match against Riggs, an author's note delves further into King's activism for women's sports, Title IX, and LGBTQ communities. Ages 4 8.
