Gear up for the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics running July 26-Aug. 11. Officially the XXXIII Olympiad Games, these books for all age groups highlight stories from incredible Canadian and other Summer sports athletes that you don’t want to miss! A staff-created list with even more with even more new and older favorites can be found on our online catalogue.
Memoir: Make it Count by CeCé Telfer
By turns harrowing and hopeful, Make it count is the inspiring story of the first openly transgender woman to win a NCAA title. This memoir recounts the author’s transphobic traditional upbringing in Jamaica, her fight to become a US citizen, and her efforts to achieve her Olympic dreams in spite of many obstacles.
Non-Fiction: The Other Olympians: Fascism, Queerness and the Making of Modern Sports by Michael Waters
In The Other Olympians, Michael Waters uncovers, for the first time, the gripping true stories of Zdeněk Koubek, Mark Weston, and other pioneering trans and intersex athletes from their era. With dogged research and cinematic flair, Waters also tracks how International Olympic Committee members ignored Nazi Germany’s atrocities in order to pull off the Berlin Games, a partnership that ultimately influenced the IOC’s nearly century-long obsession with surveilling and cataloging gender.
Biography: World’s Fast Man*: The Incredible Life of Ben Johnson by Mary Ormsby
For 24 hours in the summer of 1988, Canada’s Ben Johnson was the most celebrated athlete on the planet. He’d won the 100-metre sprint at the Seoul Olympics in a world-record 9.79 seconds and just had time to say, “A gold medal – that’s something no one can take away from you,” before testing positive for performance enhancing drugs and giving back his medal. Given unprecedented access to Johnson, sportswriter, Mary Ormsby tells his whole story for the first time – the rise of a skinny kid working Jamaican sugar estates to track-and-field superstardom to his lifetime ban from the sport and his unyielding efforts to determine exactly what happened to him on that fateful night in 1988.
Fiction: Fast Girls: A Novel of the 1936 Women’s Olympics Team by Elise Hooper
Acclaimed author Elise Hooper explores the gripping, real life history of three female athletes, members of the first integrated women’s Olympic team, and their journeys to the 1936 summer games in Nazi-controlled Berlin. Fast Girls is a compelling, thrilling look at what it takes to be a female Olympian in pre-war America and filled with rich historical detail and brilliant story-telling.
Fiction: Head Over Heels by Hannah Orenstein
A sweet sports romance featuring Avery, a former Olympic gymnastics hopeful and Ryan, an Olympic medalist and now gymnastics coach who taps Avery to help with his Olympic hopeful student’s floor routine. Hesitant to get back into the world that let her down, Avery agrees, quickly getting excited about the young gymnast’s potential.
Fiction: The Bone Cage by Angie Abdou
A Canada Reads finalist, The Bone Cage tells the story of Digger, an 85-kilo wrestler, and Sadie, a 26-year-old speed swimmer, who are standing on the verge of realizing every athlete’s dream – winning a gold medal at the Olympics. Both athletes are nearing the end of their careers and are forced to confront the question: What happens to athletes when their bodies are too worn to compete? The blossoming relationship between Digger and Sadie is tested in the intense months leading up to the Olympics, which, as both of them are painfully aware, will be the realization or the end of a life’s dream.
Young Adult Fiction: Synchro Boy by Shannon McFerran
A moving debut Young Adult story about Bart Lively, a 16-year-old competitive swimmer with Olympic dreams who switches to synchronized swimming, starts a relationship with his partner while simultaneously falling for a cute male diver. A great book about one teen boy’s journey exploring different definitions of masculinity and his own sexual identity.
Juvenile Non-Fiction: Kid Olympians: True Tales of Childhood from Champions and Game Changers by Robin Stevenson
Inspiring, relatable, and totally true biographies tell the childhood stories of a diverse group of international athletes who have captured the world’s attention at the Summer Olympics. Featuring kid-friendly text and full-colour illustrations, Kid Olympians highlights international athletes at the top of their field who have competed in the iconic Summer Olympic games.
Juvenile Non-Fiction: How do you Become an Olympian? by Madeleine Kelly
This fun question and answer book has everything from engaging facts to hilarious illustrations to help young readers learn about the history of the Games, how athletes become Olympians, famous Olympians and their accomplishments, and so much more.
Picture Book: Flying High: The Story of Gymnastics Champion Simone Biles written by Michelle Meadows; Illustrated by Ebony Glenn
A lyrical picture book biography of Simone Biles, tracing her early athletic life and her success as a world champion and Olympic gold medal winning gymnast.
Picture Book: Lucas at the Paralympics written by Igor Plohl; Illustrated by Urška Stropnik Šonc
Lucas and Eddie, two physically disabled friends, visit the Paralympics and cheer on blind and physically challenged athletes as they compete in running, swimming, sitting volleyball, para archery, wheelchair fencing, wheelchair basketball, and more. Includes sidebars about how athletes who are blind, wear prosthetics, or use wheelchairs compete in different events, as well as the history of the Paralympic Games.
Film: The Boys of ’36
This PBS documentary explores the story of an American rowing team from the University of Washington that defeated elite rivals at Hitler’s 1936 Berlin Olympics. Based on the book, The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown.