What did you read as a young sports fan?  Maybe the sports pages in the local newspaper, or a glossy illustrated magazine?  Did your school’s library carry biographies of famous athletes written for children, or did you go straight to the books for adults to satisfy the desire for more knowledge about your favorite sport?

For this summer seminar episode of New Books in Sports, we’re talking about reading about sports as young fans.  As with all of our seminar episodes, we hear from a variety of people who write about sports around the world.  The guest list includes bloggers Maxi Rodriguez and Alexander Mais, journalists Patrick Donnelly, David Steele, and Siddhartha Vaidyanathan, and historian Raf Nicholson—all talking about the books and magazines they read as children, the works that shaped them as sports readers and writers.

And we also hear about sports literature for children that is being published today.  Authors Lil Chase, John Coy, Dan Gutman, and Tom Palmer tell us about writing for young readers and the stories behind their own sports-related books.  Scholars Michael Buma and Jeff Wilhelm talk about the issues that children’s sports books address and the effect they can have in getting kids to read.  And we hear about kids writing on sports from Phil Dimitriadis and Hannah Kuhar, who contribute to the student pages of the popular Australian fan site, the Footy Almanac.

If you’re wondering what the kids are going to do during the months of summer holiday, you’ll hear plenty of suggestions of good books for children of all ages (and adults as well).  But even if you’re not in the market for children’s books, you’ll appreciate being reminded of the book you used to read as a kid.