Let the Games Begin!
The Games of the XXXIII Olympiad (Summer 2024 Olympics) in Paris, France begin on Friday, July 26th and will continue until August 11th. Over 10,000 athletes from 206 countries will complete in 329 events in 32 sports. The Olympics provide endless opportunities for our children to learn about sportsmanship, discipline, dedication, and perseverance. The books featured this week highlight lesser-known Olympians who faced significant obstacles in their quest for recognition and Olympic gold.
Joyful Reading!
Sakamoto’s Swim Club: How a Teacher Led an Unlikely Team to Victory
Written by Julie Abery, Illustrated by Chris Sasaki
Written in short rhymes, Julie Ebery tells the story of teacher Soichi Sakamoto’s (1906 – 1997) efforts to develop a swim team for the children of migrant workers in 1930s Maui. While their parents worked on sugar cane plantations, the children were often left to their own devices, swimming in irrigation canals – getting chased off by the Police. Sakamoto, witnessing this, advocated for the children to have permission to swim in the canals, and began to coach them in swimming. Eventually a pool is built, and the children trained to become competitive swimmers. Interrupted by WWII, his swimmers eventually compete nationally and internationally, making it to the 1948 Olympics. Chris Sasaki’s richly textured illustrations beautifully accompany the sparce text and honor the colorful Hawaiian landscape. An author’s note provides additional details about Sakamoto and the swimmers he trained.
Sponsored by the National Portrait Gallery Greenberg Steinhauser Forum in American Portraiture, Soichi Sakamoto and the Three-Year Swim Club features a discussion with author Julie Checkoway and Professor Kelli Y. Nakamura.
Author Julie Checkoway discusses her book, The Three-Year Swim Club: The Untold Story of Maui’s Sugar Ditch Kids and Their Quest for Olympic Glory, chronicling how Soichi Sakamoto, a grammar teacher, to transformed a group of Japanese immigrants children into Olympic swimmers.
Soichi Sakamoto and the Three-Year Swim Club: “The World’s Greatest Swimming Coach.” A research article by Kelli Y. Nakamura.
Touch the Sky: Alice Coachman, Olympic Jumper
Written by Ann Malaspina, Illustrated by Eric Velasquez
This richly illustrated book chronicles the story of Alice Coachman (1923-2014), the first Black woman to win a gold medal at the Olympics. As a child, Alice ran barefoot though the woods near her home, created a makeshift high jump with sticks and rags, and played basketball with boys -- all activities that were not considered appropriate by her parents, especially her father. Her athletic talents earned her the opportunity to train at Tuskegee, to the Olympic Trails, and the 1948 Olympics where she set a new record of the high jump, winning the gold medal. Eric Velazquez’s illustrations capture the power and grace of Alice’s jumps, most dramatically her Olympic medal–winning jump in double-page spread which partially appears on the book’s cover. An author’s note and bibliography provide additional details about Alice Coachman’s athletic achievements.
Sixteen Years in Sixteen Seconds: The Sammy Lee Story
Written by Paula Yoo, Illustrated by Dom Lee
The title of this book refers to the 16 years that Sammy Lee (1920-2016) trained for the 16 seconds it took him to perform his first Olympic gold medal winning dive at the 1948 London Olympics. The book chronicles the challenges faced by a young Sammy Lee, the child of Korean immigrants to the United States, whose passion for swimming and diving was further ignited by the 1932 Olympic Games held in Los Angeles. For young Sammy, access to the public swimming pool was limited, as it was only open to people of color on Wednesdays. Despite this challenge and his father’s desire for him to become a doctor, Sammy was able to achieve both, becoming a doctor, and the first American of Asian descent to win an Olympic gold medal. Dom Lee’s scratchboard-style, sepia-toned illustrations evoke the era in which Lee trained and came of age. An author’s note provides a more comprehensive biography of Sammy Lee’s career as a physician, diver, diving coach, and more.
Brief and inspiring interview with Dr. Sammy Lee
Beyond the Books
The Olympics provide endless opportunities for our children to engage in a variety of ways. For young athletes, they serve a source of inspiration and learning about the discipline and perseverance necessary to become a world class athlete. Sportsmanship is also on heavy display during the games, learning how to win and lose gracefully, important life skills for all of us to embrace. In addition to sports, the Olympics offer endless opportunities to explore geography and to learn about the multitude of cultures represented by Olympic athletes. You might want to test your geography skills by locating athletes’ home countries on a world map or globe. You might want to dive a bit deeper and learn about cultures, languages spoken, and more.
We are Teachers have created 40 Fascinating and Inspiring Olympics Facts along with links to explore content more deeply. The Paris 2024 site contains information about the games. NBC is the official network covering the Games in the United States, will provide primetime and weekend coverage on NBC television networks and steaming on Peacock. NBC Olympics provides a complete schedule of events, profiles of athletes, and much more.