2025 Blogging A to Z Challenge: Sports
It’s time to get a move on, so let’s talk sports! Today’s 2025 Blogging A to Z Challenge post is all about sports, and not just your typical baseball, basketball, and soccer, but dance, yoga, and rowing. Plus, more fun statistics and facts that you’ll ever know what to do with! I’ve also included some amazing narrative nonfiction titles about real-life stories that you’ll find hard to believe. My brother wasn’t a huge reader as a kid, but could memorize sports statistics like it was nobody’s business and I think he probably would have loved these books as a kid!
And while some kids aren’t necessarily sporty kids (definitely me!). There are so many amazing sports, I think it’s great for kids to try all sorts of different activities to find what they love. Sportsmanship, teamwork, perseverance are all great skills that kids will pick up playing sports.
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2025 Blogging A to Z Challenge: Sports
108 Awesome Yoga Poses for Kids: Stomp Like a Dinosaur, Flutter Like a Butterfly, Breathe Like the Sun by Lauren Chaitoff
Wiggle and giggle your way through these amazing yoga poses that will help you feel good!
Inside this book, you’ll find tons of playful yoga positions that will show you how moving your body can be fun. Let your imagination soar as you become a bouncing Frog, a magical Mermaid or a soaring Rocket Ship with these simple, silly stretches. Plus, learn how to slow your breathing and calm down when you’re mad or sad with poses like Lion’s Breath or Sun Breath.
So, get ready to twist, scoot, stretch, bend and become a yoga pro! You’ll love these yoga poses, and how awesome you feel after!
All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys’ Soccer Team by Christina Soontornvat
On June 23, 2018, twelve young players of the Wild Boars soccer team and their coach enter a cave in northern Thailand seeking an afternoon’s adventure. But when they turn to leave, rising floodwaters block their path out. The boys are trapped! Before long, news of the missing team spreads, launching a seventeen-day rescue operation involving thousands of rescuers from around the globe. As the world sits vigil, people begin to wonder: how long can a group of ordinary kids survive in complete darkness, with no food or clean water? Luckily, the Wild Boars are a very extraordinary “ordinary” group.
Combining firsthand interviews of rescue workers with in-depth science and details of the region’s culture and religion, author Christina Soontornvat—who was visiting family in Northern Thailand when the Wild Boars went missing—masterfully shows how both the complex engineering operation above ground and the mental struggles of the thirteen young people below proved critical in the life-or-death mission.
Meticulously researched and generously illustrated with photographs, this page-turner includes an author’s note describing her experience meeting the team, detailed source notes, and a bibliography to fully immerse readers in the most ambitious cave rescue in history.
The Boys in the Boat (Young Readers Adaptation): The True Story of an American Team’s Epic Journey to Win Gold at the 1936 Olympics by Daniel James Brown
For readers of Unbroken, out of the depths of the Great Depression comes the astonishing tale of nine working-class boys from the American West who at the 1936 Olympics showed the world what true grit really meant. With rowers who were the sons of loggers, shipyard workers, and farmers, the University of Washington’s eight-oar crew was never expected to defeat the elite East Coast teams, yet they did, going on to shock the world by challenging the German boat rowing for Adolf Hitler.
At the center of the tale is Joe Rantz, a teenager without family or prospects, whose personal quest captures the spirit of his generation—the generation that would prove in the coming years that the Nazis could not prevail over American determination and optimism.
Illustrated Sports Encyclopedia: The Ultimate Guide to Sports from Around the World
Are you a team player? Do you have a steady aim? Maybe you are super fast or strong? Whatever your size or skill, there is a sport out there for you.
The Illustrated Sports Encyclopedia is the ultimate illustrated guide to the diverse world of sport, from the best known ball-sports, athletics, and water sports to the most obscure racket sports and races (anyone for a game of pickleball?). The book showcases different sports by grouping them into categories including team sports, target sports, winter sports, wheels and motors, horse sports, and extreme sports.
Inaugural Ballers: The True Story of the First US Women’s Olympic Basketball Team by Andrew Maraniss
A League of Their Own meets Miracle in the inspirational true story of the first US Women’s Olympic Basketball team and their unlikely rise to the top.
Twenty years before women’s soccer became an Olympic sport and two decades before the formation of the WNBA, the ’76 US women’s basketball team laid the foundation for the incredible rise of women’s sports in America at the youth, collegiate, Olympic, and professional levels.
Though they were unknowns from small schools such as Delta State, the University of Tennessee at Martin and John F. Kennedy College of Wahoo, Nebraska, at the time of the ’76 Olympics, the American team included a roster of players who would go on to become some of the most legendary figures in the history of basketball. From Pat Head, Nancy Lieberman, Ann Meyers, Lusia Harris, coach Billie Moore, and beyond—these women took on the world and proved everyone wrong.
National Geographic Kids Everything Sports: All the Photos, Facts, and Fun to Make You Jump! by Eric Zweig
Become an expert on sports, just in time for the 2016 Olympics! From archery to zip lining this book covers EVERYTHING about the world’s favorite team and individual sports. With stunning visuals and energetic, impactful design, readers won’t stop until they’ve learned everything there is to know about the history, rules and regs, training, and practice of dozens of athletic pursuits. Includes popular sports such as baseball, basketball, football, soccer, tennis, and quirkier sports such as fencing, curling, and table tennis.
National Geographic Little Kids First Big Book of Sports by James Buckley Jr.
Whether a sport needs a ball or a stick, a pool or a field, a racquet or a ski pole, young readers can explore each sport’s history and the rules and skills that make that sport unique. From basketball to soccer, lacrosse to cricket, archery to diving, bowling to skateboarding, snowboarding to playground games, this lively reference book covers a variety of team and individual sports. Special sections look at the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Ready, Set, Go!: Sports of All Sorts by Celeste Cortright, illustrated by Christiane Engel
Come along on a lively, lyrical exploration of the world’s most beloved sports. Rhyming text and energetic artwork featuring a diverse group of children introduce the basics of eight sports popular around the world: baseball, track, football/soccer, gymnastics, hockey, karate, basketball, and swimming.
Scholastic Year in Sports 2025 by James Buckley
A star-studded YEAR IN SPORTS ended with a Summer Olympics that was tres magnifique! (That means “mega-super-awesome” in French!) Inside, you’ll find all the gold-medal-winning heroes from the Olympic Games in Paris, and champions from sports around the world in the past year. We’ve got all the winners from your favorite American sports, but we also take a look at rugby, cricket, cycling, and winter sports, among others!
Don’t miss a pitch, kick, shot, goal, touchdown, home run, three-pointer, or slam dunk! Find a good spot to read . . . and when you’re done, get out and play like a champion!
Stomp, Wiggle, Clap, and Tap: My First Book of Dance by Rachelle Burk
Toddlers are natural dancers, and they love to move! Release some of that endless toddler energy and help them develop balance and coordination with Stomp, Wiggle, Clap, and Tap. Moving along with the story will help stimulate little brains and provide a fun, creative way to build spatial awareness. Tons of colorful pictures offer toddlers visual clues for the movements, and the rhyming words make reading aloud feel like music.
Unbroken (The Young Adult Adaptation): An Olympian’s Journey From Airman to Castaway to Captive by Laura Hillenbrand
On a May afternoon in 1943, an American military plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary sagas of the Second World War.
The lieutenant’s name was Louis Zamperini. As a boy, he had been a clever delinquent, breaking into houses, brawling, and stealing. As a teenager, he had channeled his defiance into running, discovering a supreme talent that carried him to the Berlin Olympics. But when war came, the athlete became an airman, embarking on a journey that led to his doomed flight, a tiny raft, and a drift into the unknown.
Ahead of Zamperini lay thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, a sinking raft, thirst and starvation, enemy aircraft, and, beyond, a trial even greater. Driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would respond to desperation with ingenuity, suffering with hope and humor, brutality with rebellion. His fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would hang on the fraying wire of his will.
Weird But True Sports: 300 Wacky Facts about Awesome Athletics
Get ready for the Olympics! Everything has its weird side–even sports! Add wacky stats, facts, and stories to your arsenal of sports trivia with this new slam-dunk addition to the very popular Weird but True series! Discover tons more zany fun, focused totally on the subject of sports! So step up to the plate to get 300 ALL-NEW amazing facts plus photos.
2025 is my tenth year participating in the Blogging A to Z Challenge! This year, I chose as my theme: Fact Finders Club: Nonfiction for Curious Kids with a focus on providing book lists focused on all types of nonfiction books for readers from birth to teens. Each letter of the alphabet will focus on different topics and will provide twelve titles on each list. Nonfiction is having a heyday in children’s literature and if you think it’s dry and boring, then I implore you to take a look at these amazing suggestions! Stop by daily to check out the new books and other posts that I’ll be sharing in April.
