Wednesday, June 12, 2019

Teamwork and Individual Stories

Sometimes when I meet a character in a realistic fiction story who accomplishes a major goal or succeeds at a great task that seemed daunting or impossible, I think how lucky I am to have met that person, and been an observer of their life (even though I know the author was the one who did the masterful job of creating the character and challenge and making it all seem real). Then, I often wonder, what about the other characters involved? I don't know if I would have been able to accomplish the same feat as the main character. Just because the protagonist is the star player of the championship team, and the story focused on her, and she has a great story, the other players on the team have a story, too, don't they? I have to tell myself this daily when I doubt my skills and abilities and think that maybe what I have to offer and the stories I write aren't "good enough" when compared to others. We don't know what happens behind someone else's front door.

You know what? My stories matter. And, I want to hear those other stories, too. They do have value. I think this is part of what I love about the character, Nikki, in the debut novel by Barbara Carroll Roberts.
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Nikki on the Line Written by Barbara Carroll Roberts; (c)2019 Little, Brown and Company (Publisher)

In Nikki on the Line, Roberts gives birth to a main character, Nikki, age 13, whose immediate family is comprised of her younger brother, Sam, and their single mom. Nikki lives for playing basketball, even though her mom apparently has no sports genes and seems to zone out when Nikki talks the sport. Readers also learn, when the science teacher assigns a project involving DNA and family, that both Nikki and her brother were conceived via anonymous sperm donors. To Nikki, this is initially the most embarrassing thing her mom could have done to her kids.

The story primarily revolves around Nikki's involvement playing on a club basketball team. After she makes the team, she must convince her mom how much it means to play at the club level. Nikki also must decide what she will sacrifice to make it feasible for her mom to afford the club fees on a single-parent salary. The story continues with Nikki figuring out where she fits on a team of players who each perform at a high level of skill, managing the changes she chose for her life so she can play at the club level, and finding her way with friendships. As the story progresses, Nikki struggles with belief in her own abilities and wondering if her choices are truly worth it.

I loved this book on several levels. First, I'm sure I've mentioned before that I am not a sports person. I watch basketball at times, but I do not know the rules of the game. Until reading Nikki on the Line, I also only saw basketball players from the outside, solely as players, which is also part of the reason watching team sports has not appealed to me. Roberts writes with a clarity that allowed me to see via Nikki's first person point-of-view and be in the game. I was on the floor, in Nikki's mind, seeing through her eyes. This was a perspective I've never had with basketball before. The plays started to make sense. The working together with team-mates and strategy from the coach came into focus. I could see it, and I liked it.

Second, being a mom who also conceived her daughter via a sperm donor, I found Nikki's embarrassment interesting. Each family is different, and I wonder when Nikki first started to have a problem with how she was conceived. I have considered how my daughter will think when she reaches age 13, but we have had conversations about it (at levels that are appropriate for her age). So far so good. My first picture book manuscript draft during grad school was a story I wrote for my daughter about a girl who struggled with making a family tree for school and trying to figure how how to fit in the person who brought her and her mom together. (If you want the actual terminology I used, I am looking for an agent and/or publisher for the now heavily revised manuscript that I included in my graduate creative thesis). In Nikki on the Line I appreciate how, as Nikki starts to learn about the man who she identifies as her "paper dad", she starts to acknowledge and welcome the traits she likely inherited from him.

Third, when looking at the book as a whole, the theme of teamwork comes to mind. Not only do the individual contributions of each player combine to make a dynamic team, everything in Nikki's life relates back to teamwork. Whether it is how she works with a friend and family to improve her basketball skills, how she works with her brother and her mom to make playing basketball a reality, or how all parts of her life come together, like a team, to make her hopes and goals a success.

Finally, I love how this book was not about a girl who single-handedly led a basketball team to a championship or won a super scholarship or was discovered and became a star. It was about a girl who makes up one important part of a greater whole. It was about a girl who understands the value of hard work, practice, family, friendships, and what it takes to be part of a team. I wonder what the story would be if any of the other players on Nikki's basketball team were the protagonists. Any one of them might have a story equally valuable. For now, though, in this story, Nikki is the winning character in my mind.

To discovery of many more perspectives, and individual stories.

Today and tomorrow,

~Tamara


1 comment:

  1. Finding well-written middle grade books that focus on sports, and feature female protagonists, is definitely a need for the school library. I will plan to add this to my school's collection.

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