Skateboarding: Book of Tricks (Start-Up Sports)
Grade 7 Up-Picking up where the authors' Skateboarding: New Levels: Tips and Tricks for Serious Riders (Tracks, 2002) left off, this book offers skaters 34 advanced tricks plus an interview with Badillo. For younger skaters seeking their roots, all the old-school favorites are covered, such as the frontside and backside boneless, judo air, airwalk, frontside 540 bertslide, and many others. There are step-by-step, captioned, black-and-white photographs for each maneuver, though the quality runs the gamut from clear and sharp to grainy and shoddy. However, Badillo never appears to wear any pads or a helmet, despite the safety disclaimer at the beginning of the book. His personal comments, such as "ride away with the song, `Like a Virgin,' on your mind," enhance the text. The resources section offers books, camps, skate parks, periodicals, and Web sites. Overall, this title will complement skateboarding collections, and enthusiasts will keep it in circulation.Michael Giller, South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities, GreenvilleCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.