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A Soccer (or Football) Sleepover in Brazil is part of the Global Sleepover series of interactive storybooks that aim to introduce young readers to different countries and cultures.

Among scores of spring themed picture books, families with young fans can celebrate the season with this diverse selection of 5 baseball inspired books.

Lauren, Publicity Assistant

Laura Pappano, co-author with Eileen McDonagh of Playing With The Boys: Why Separate Is Not Equal, is an award-winning journalist and writer-in-residence at Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College. She blogs at FairGameNews.com . In the original post below, Pappano discusses  Elizabeth Lambert’s hair-pulling and sportsmanship in women’s athletics.  Read Pappano’s previous OUPblog posts here.

Outrage over New Mexico soccer player Elizabeth Lambert’s dirty play – including her ponytail-yanking an opponent to the ground – is justified given this egregious act of poor sportsmanship.

But as the conversation and video have gone viral – from SportsCenter to NFL pre-game shows to David Letterman – the subtext has become less about comportment and more about the gendered expectations of female athletes.

Guys fighting in sports – whether ice hockey or baseball – is considered a “natural” by-product of intense play and, well, testosterone. They can’t help it. When women get heated in competition (ask any high school female athletes about trash talking and you’ll get an earful) there is a perception that they’re supposed to act…differently.

In a season of throw-backs, you can add this to the list: Just as our grandmothers insisted that girls don’t sweat, they “perspire,” there remains a narrow range of acceptable behavior for female athletes. Such rigidity is not new (in previous eras women basketball players were required to wear makeup in competition and submit to half-time beauty contests), but until Lambert we had thought the rules had evolved – at least a little.

The increasing skill level and intensity of women’s sports even at high school and college levels should not be a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention. Problem is, of course, many have not been paying attention. Women’s sports remain poorly covered by the mainstream male sports media. News outlets hardly feel obligated to report on even major events (it took digging to get the result of the WNBA final). And chatter about Lambert on sports talk radio last week on the Boston station I listen to was preceded by the admission that “we have never talked about women’s college soccer on this program and we will probably never talk about women’s college soccer again, but…”

The fact remains that while female athletes have developed skills, hard-charging attitudes and leave-it-all-on-the-field seriousness about their play, we still view them as grown-up girls (in ponytails) who might be doing cartwheels in the backfield if they thought they wouldn’t get caught.

Some little girl-female athlete affinity is purposeful marketing. That’s the justification for Saturday afternoon college basketball games and cheap tickets. And, certainly, why shouldn’t women’s teams, from college basketball to professional soccer build a fan base from those who can relate to them as role models? Isn’t that the NFL’s goal fulfilled when millions of boys paste Ladanian Tomlinson Fatheads on bedroom walls and wear Peyton Manning jerseys to school?

Promoting athletes as role models, of course, is always tricky. But where men get a pass for bad behavior, women draw fire.

We forgive Michael Vick, and gasp when Serena Williams screams at a line judge’s late call at the U.S. Open.

We must get past the notion that female athletes are “nice” first and good second, and women’s games should be peddled as “family fare.” It is tiring to hear enlightened men describe themselves as “supporters” of women’s sports as if they are charitable donors. No one likes dirty play. But if Elizabeth Lambert just made people see that women’s sports are highly intense, competitive, and exciting, well, good for her.

UPDATE: 2-22-2008

It’s a long story, folks, but I am having some problems with my blog. The problems started when I forgot my username. It’s one thing to forget your password. You can ask the program to send you another one. When you forget your username, well, that’s a whole ‘nother issue. I spent days trying to get the combination of username and password correct. I finally got the username right a few days ago and can now access the admin area of my blog. But now there’s another problem — I can’t create a new post. I can only edit old ones.

AARRGH! 

As soon as my copy of WordPress For Dummies arrives, I will try to make repairs. Thanks for your patience!

******* 

Confession is messy, unpleasant, and makes us squirm in our seats. Yet it’s good for the soul — or at least good for a blog post.

So here we go with a list of my most worn-out, over-used writing avoidance behaviors (not in any particular order):

*     Testing spider solitaire to make sure it wasn’t affected by those pesky hazardous programs my anti-spyware says I picked up while surfing the net.

*     Checking Miss Snark’s blog, because I don’t want to miss out when she takes a hiatus from retirement.

*     Downloading free trials of story-building software.

*     Uninstalling the free trials after I realize I could write a novel in the time it takes to figure out how to use story-building software.

*     Giving my cat a bath.

*     Watching reruns of Law and Order.

*     Returning to the kitchen for yet another handful of reduced fat Cheez-Its.

*     Clicking the refresh button on my email inbox.

*     Visiting QVC.com in case Today’s Special Value is something I can’t live without.

*     Listing some of the avoidance behaviors I practice during times I’m supposed to be writing. (Like right now.)

I made up my mind a few months ago to get serious about reading. Why?

Because if you want to write, you have to read.

It’s not that I wasn’t reading anything at all. I read the scriptures. I read the newspaper. (I also write for a newspaper, but that’s another story.) I read my emails. I’m a regular blog reader. I read my work-in-progress (and usually get depressed by my lack of progress).

The problem? I wasn’t reading in the genre I write.

I wasn’t reading children’s books.

Lin Oliver, the executive director of SCBWI, gave the keynote address at our regional conference in September. She shared several ways writers and illustrators could improve their work, and reading more children’s books was high on her list of things to do.

I am much better at creating excuses than I am fine works of literature. Sadly, I had convinced myself I didn’t have time to read because I had a book to revise, and my time was so limited that I needed to spend it producing work, rather than reading the work of others. The problem is, I want to read in the same way I want to write — all at once, from start to finish.

I’ve just about convinced myself that desire is not practical as far as writing is concerned. Though I still wish for blocks of uninterrupted time, I regularly tell myself one page is better than nothing and at least brings me closer to the end. But when it comes to reading, I’d still prefer to pick up a book and not put it down until I’ve reached the last page.

After the conference, I decided to develop the reading habit, even if it was just a few pages a day. I was already reading the morning paper while using my exercise bike. I set a goal to use the last few minutes of my workout to read a book — even if I only finished one chapter.

I’m pleased to say that since September, I’ve read six books — and I understand why it’s so important now to read in the genre I’m writing, especially since I spend my days stringing words journalism-style. I need to remember the pleasure of escaping to another world, as I have while reading Anna of Byzantium. I need to revel in the beauty and simplicity of a scene formed in free verse, as in Out of the Dust. I need to be reminded of the tough decisions children have to make as they form and sever friendships, like in the story True Friends. And I need to be reminded that in children’s books anything is possible, as in Whittington.

Best of all, the more I read, the more I want to write, and the happier I am knowing I have chosen to spend my free time writing for children — the best, most imaginative, and most inquisitive audience of all.

(I also posted this on the latterdayauthors blog.) 

10. You dream in stories, and when you wake up (even if it’s the middle of the night) you grab something — anything — to write the dream down, because if you don’t you’ll forget it.

9. You have rituals you must perform or objects you must have on your desk in order to write. (I have my “Remember Who You Are” token from Terrie hanging on my desk at work, and I start my day with a soda and a bag of pretzels.)

8. Your friends are either imaginary (because they’re in your mind) or invisible (because they’re on the internet).

7. You may not recall the terminology used to describe proper grammar when writing, but find you know as if by instinct when something “sounds” right — or when it doesn’t.

6. You become so focused when working on a project you forget to do things like eat lunch, feed the cat, blow out the candles you lit for ambiance, remove the laundry that’s in the dryer …

5. When you get a rejection letter, you cry. You swear never to send your story out again. You decide to pack up all your writing books. Then, a couple of days later, you realize if you just tweaked a couple of elements in your submission … and before you know it, you’re stamping another SASE.

4. You spoil movies and TV for your non-writer friends. When a character gets a book published and it goes on the market right away, you laugh and say, “That’s so fake. That’s not the way it is AT ALL.” Then you proceed to tell them all about the submission and rejection process. Like they even care.

3. You realize a good book is the result of a good relationship between the author and the editor.

2. You get excited when a new office supply store opens in town.

And, the number one way (at least for me)…

1. You clean out your closet and find you still have copies of The Writer you bought in 1996, and you realize that after all these years, you still haven’t given up hope — and you’re still writing.

Finally, I’m answering the questions from an earlier comment posted by Candace Salima. Thanks for asking, Candace!

How did I get started as writer?

It’s hard to say how I got started. I guess the bug bit me when my kids were in elementary school. I read Hatchet when my daughter was assigned to read it for class. It’s still one of my favorite reads. As I was absorbed into the story I kept thinking, “I wish I could write books like this.” Ten years later, I was. J But it took a lot of work and a lot of lonely hours spent writing to get to that point.

I got sidetracked for a while, thinking I wanted to write poetry. E.B. White once said he wanted to write like the poets because they were the great ones. I wanted to write like the poets, too, but after a while I realized I am a lousy poet. I’ve always felt like E.B. and I have something in common.

I wrote public radio commentary for about 5 years and loved doing it, but could rarely bring myself to listen to myself on the radio! I wrote an opinion column for the local newspaper for about two years, then dropped all that because I went to work and was writing the Kevin Kirk Chronicles series.

Now the Kevin series is done, and I’m still working - now I’m a staff writer at the paper. But I am working on more books, too - writing for young readers is my first love, and always will be.

What books do I like?

I am an extremely choosy reader.

Middle-grade and YA fiction: I’m not into Gossip Girl - type stuff. I like fantasy, historical, anything that makes me think or feel deeply. I like to read a book that makes me feel like I’m inside the character’s mind; I want to know what and why he’s feeling the way he’s feeling or what is prodding him to choose his course of action.

Grown-up fiction: One of my all time favorite books is The Grapes of Wrath. I don’t care much for most modern grown-up fiction, but I love non-fiction. Two of my favorite books are Issac’s Storm and The Meaning of Everything: The Making of the Oxford English Dictionary. I want to read American Prometheus. I bought the book but even in paperback you could get a concussion if someone hit you in the head with it - it’s that thick. But my time is limited right now, so I have to make my latest writing project — and reading children’s books — a priority.

What am I working on?

I have one work-in-progress that’s taking up my free time. I have a goal to get the manuscript polished up and as perfect as I can make it before the 2008 SCBWI-LA conference.

I am a big fan of the early episodes of Law and Order. But because of my job, I recently spent several days sitting in circuit court. TV courtrooms and real courtrooms have very little in common!

In circuit court, the judge hears many different types of cases. Most are drug-related charges, DUIs, forgery, theft. Others include non-payment of child support or assault. There have been two cases this week where defendants pleaded guilty to murder charges. One was a case in which the defendant was charged with third-degree fetal homicide; in other words, he was charged with committing an act which resulted of the death of a baby while it was still in the mother’s womb. In this particular case, the defendant had kicked and hit his pregnant girlfriend in the stomach, causing her to miscarry the baby a short time later. He received a five-year prison sentence.

Our state passed a law in 2004 allowing prosecutors to use the fetal homicide charge. Defendants convicted of first-degree, or deliberate, fetal homicide can receive a death sentence.  

The atmosphere in a real courtroom is less dramatic than on TV. (Maybe it’s because there’s no soundtrack.) It’s solemn most of the time, with the occasional brief light moment (emphasis on brief and light–no hearty laughter here) and highly formal.

The judge is business-like. He has to ask questions of the defendant (the one accused) or the defendant’s lawyer. He has to ensure the defendant understands the charges against him or her. The judge also listens to information presented by the prosecuting attorney. He must weigh out all the facts presented in order to decide whether the defendant will benefit from probation — simply put, a period of time in which the defendant is under supervision and must not commit any more crimes — or incarceration, which is jail time.

It is heartbreaking to hear the sobs of family members when the judge sentences someone to jail time. Today, I saw a young man brought into the courtroom in shackles — the first time I’d seen someone literally brought in wearing chains. He had been busted more than once for possessing large quantities of drugs.

His mother sat nearby. The young man sat in the front of the courtroom, two guards from the correctional facility behind him. I sensed she couldn’t stop staring at her son, perhaps because it had been a while since she had seen him in person.

He stood before the judge, and the mother literally sat on the edge of her seat. After the case was presented the judge pronounced sentence. I don’t remember the exact sentence, because I was watching the mother. But it was more jail time. The guards led the young man away from the judge’s bench and to the door leading out of the courtroom. His mother rose from her seat, her eyes on her son the whole time. She kept her gaze on him and as he was escorted out the door on one side, she walked in the same direction, separated from her son by rows of seats and two pistol-carrying guards.

It was painful to watch. This young man had not only broken the law, he’d broken his mother’s heart.

The chains he wore were hers to bear too.