In A Whole New Ball Game (Holt, 1993) and Winning Ways (Holt, 1996), Sue Macy wove her passion for women’s athletics and her research skills into compelling nonfiction narratives about women and girls in sports. Girls Got Game goes beyond facts to emotional truths in nine short stories and nine poems by different women. Each story features a young female protagonist involved in athletics, from softball to synchronized swimming, horseback riding to tetherball, basketball to soccer. They are girls with struggles many young readers will recognize, whether or not they are sports-minded themselves. Sometimes that struggle is highly personal, as in Virginia Euwer Wolff’s short story “Water,” in which a young athlete is drained by the endless quest for perfection. Sometimes the struggle resonates with broader social issues, such as the age-old strains of sexism that are played out to subtle and infuriating perfection in Felicia E. Halpert’s “Summer Games.” In that story, the sweetness of a young girl’s first love grows bitter after she beats the boy in a camp tetherball tournament and he turns his back on her. The nine poems in the collection also cover a range of sports and offer sweat, grit, and celebration at the thrill of doing something well or courageously. A brief biography of each contributor describes her experiences with athletics. Sue Macy’s introduction is a marvelous personal essay on growing up as a sports-loving girl with little outlet for her enthusiasm in the days before Title IX. (Ages 11–16)

Millions of girls are now running, swinging bats and shooting hoops. Here's the first young readers' anthology of new fiction that tells their stories.

"Girls Got Game features a new breed of heroines who are not afraid to sweat. Young athletes will see themselves in these stories; their mothers will wish they'd had books like this when they were growing up."
--Sue Macy

Sue Macy, author of three popular nonfiction books on women in sports, has gathered the best fiction writers and poets to describe the in-the-moment experiences of the millions of girls who are now competing. Here's the first anthology to describe being on the field the way girls are enjoying it today -- as a regular part of their lives that is allowing them to compete, to excel, to feel their own power and potential, and to face defeat and emerge stronger for the next contest. From basketball to soccer, tetherball to swimming to horseback riding, Girls Got Game breaks new ground. This all-star lineup of authors and poets includes Virginia Euwer Wolff, Jacqueline Woodson, and Sue Macy herself in her fictional debut, creating a book that is a great read, as well as an affirmation of what girls are doing every day.