Title: Bring Your Racquet
Subtitle: Tennis Basics for Kids
Author: Steven White
ISBN: 978-1933794242
Pages: 114 perfect bound
Size: 5.25 x 7.25
Price: $14.00
Publication date: March 12, 2010
 
Steven White brings twenty-five years of tennis teaching experience to focus on the fundamentals of the game for the young, the beginning, and the improving player. The book allows young readers to learn the basic strokes of tennis from easy-to-follow text, written with a combination of simple and more complex sentences and carefully introducing new vocabulary. The Manga characters not only provide an interesting looking book but the figures illustrate the various strokes and positions the author is describing. This book is a must for the many children who want to learn the fundamentals of the game and those who are constantly striving to improve their game.
From the Author
       At no time in history has there been so many children wanting to play tennis at such a young age. And quite naturally, young players are constantly striving to improve their games. While there are many ways to learn the game and to improve, the basics of tennis are unchanging. That is why this book, the result of over twenty-five years of tennis teaching experience, concentrates on the fundamentals of the game for the young, the beginning, and the improving player.
        As a professional tennis instructor, I wanted to illustrate the basics of the game in terms the average young player can easily follow. Too much written tennis instruction is overly detailed and unnecessarily complicated for young readers. This book allows intermediate readers to learn the basic strokes of the game from easy-to-follow instruction with simple sentences to more sophisticated sentence structure, and new vocabulary. But what really makes this instructional guidebook fun is the blend of instruction with Manga characters. "Manga" is a Japanese art form loved by children and young adults all over the world. And truly, with the accompaniment of characters, each lesson piques the reader's interest in learning not only the strokes themselves, but it also promotes their reading skills by motivating them to understand what they are reading - the instruction relative to a game they wish to learn.   
        Additionally, during the many months that I worked on this project, I came to the inescapable conclusion that the young readers of this book will want to make their own simplifications of the game and personalize their own approaches to improvement. In a nutshell, they will begin to take responsibility for their own games - and that's a good thing. 
        And finally, as you read and apply the tips I've provided, I hope you realize that this book is not meant to replace the teaching of your local certified professional. It is extremely difficult for anyone to teach himself tennis. There is simply too much to learn about the game. In fact, your teaching pro may even disagree with some of the ideas presented here, but that is nothing to worry about because, literally, there is no one way to play the game. You may even experience some difficulties in executing the strokes properly at first, but that shouldn't concern you either. Allow yourself some time to gain confidence in your new strokes. You may even drop a match or two as you learn your new techniques. But if you are not willing to accept this, you will not improve. Above all, the one thing I hope to teach you, is that improvement comes only with hard work and patience, as I know all too well.
 
                                                                              
                                                                                       Steven White
                                                                                       Author, Illustrator, Instructor