Choose To Matter: Being Courageously and Fabulously YOU

Gr 8 Up—Olympic medalist and soccer star Foudy founded a sports academy to help girls develop leadership skills through soccer. It is from this program that Foudy mined her source material. She begins with an examination of self and moves outward to team, school, community, and life. Along the way, the author taps friends and colleagues to share their personal stories of leadership. These voices are quite varied and include a young Paralympic star with cerebral palsy, an Irish teen who did not become defeated when leading scientists told her that her experiments wouldn't work, journalist Robin Roberts, and soccer star Mia Hamm. Foudy offers easy exercises for readers and asks them to develop a "choose to matter" plan as a way to improve their community. The book is eye-catching, with whimsical design elements, and the text is written in an unaffected style that will not intimidate.