We're Back! Here's Some Books We Missed While We Were Gone

Hello Sporty Girl Book fans! We are so sorry for taking a 2-year hiatus. To make a long story short, our blog was hijacked by code that redirected you to other sites. It's taken this long to figure out how to remove that code. But now we are back, so what better way to kick things off than by sharing some of the middle-grade Sporty Girl Books that we missed announcing in 2025. 

It's All or Nothing, Vale by Andrea Beatriz Arango

No one knows hard work and dedication like Valentina Camacho. And Vale’s thing is fencing. She’s the top athlete at her fencing gym. Or she was . . . until the accident.

After months away, Vale is finally cleared to fence again, but it’s much harder than before. Her body doesn’t move the way it used to, and worst of all is the new number one: Myrka. When she sweeps Vale aside with her perfect form and easy smile, Vale just can’t accept that. But the harder Vale fights to catch up, the more she realizes her injury isn’t the only thing holding her back. If she can’t leave her accident in the past, then what does she have to look forward to?

In this moving novel from the Newbery Honor-winning author of Iveliz Explains It All, one girl finds her way back to her life’s passion and discovers that the sum of a person’s achievements doesn’t amount to the whole of them.

On Guard! By Cassidy Wasserman

Grace isn’t ready for a new school year. Her best friend Ava dropped her at the end of last year, the dust is still settling from her parents’ messy divorce, and things are not going well between Grace and her mom. Mothers and daughters are always so close in movies. But that’s never been Grace and her mom. So now Grace has no friends, no hobbies (band was Ava’s thing), and home feels even more complicated than school. There’s not a single place Grace can just relax. Until she sees the school’s fencing club practicing. They look so sure of themselves. So steady. It may not solve everything…but could this be a place Grace can finally belong and be herself?

 The Unforgettable Leta Lightning Laurel by R.L. Toalson

Eighth-grader Leta “Lightning” Laurel is a big sister, a problem solver, and the star of her track team. Her dad’s been out of the picture for more than a year, and food’s gotten scarce at home.

When Leta learns her mom’s financial struggles are even worse than she’d thought, she hatches a plan to bring her dad home: she’ll win district champion in the 400-meter dash, the newspaper will write about her, her mom will send the clipping to her dad, and her dad will remember he has daughters who need him. Because she’ll be unforgettable.

It should be easy; no one can beat her in the 400. But a new runner shows up, threatening Leta’s top spot and her budding feminist beliefs about sisterhood. She works harder and harder in practice, trying to ensure the new girl won’t ruin her perfect plan…until an injury sidelines her.

How will she ever prove to her dad and the world that she’s unforgettable? How will she prove it to herself?

The Best Worst Summer of Esme Sun by Wendy Wan-Long Shang

Esme Sun absolutely does not care about winning shiny trophies or finally receiving some of the praise her mother bestows so lavishly on her three older, brilliant sisters. But, actually... it would be nice to be good at something. So when Esme discovers on the first day of summer, opening day at the community pool, that her growth spurt over the winter has made her a really fast swimmer, she wonders if she just might have found that thing.

After Esme has an uncomfortable encounter at the pool with a new girl, Kaya, Esme worries she may have hurt Kaya's feelings. Then, embarrassed by Esme's awkwardness, her friend Tegan, the cool girl at school who seems to do everything perfectly, makes Esme promise that from now on, she'll be chill, not act so babyish and intense about things--especially not swim team.

But when their swim competitions begin, and Esme starts winning, she finds that she actually cares a lot. In fact, she wants to break the pool's freestyle record. That doesn't mesh so well with her promise to Tegan. And as Esme tries to navigate swimming and her friendships, she searches for a way to apologize and make things right with Kaya.

Esme's mom's focus on winning confuses her, though, and she begins to wonder: Is winning really as important as she thinks, even if it means being unkind to your friends and teammates? Or is there another way to compete, to be a good sport and a good friend?

That's all we have for now, Sporty Girl Book fans, but make sure to follow our site so you can stay updated on new books, new interviews, and new news about girls in sports and sporty girl books. Did we miss a book you wrote or loved? Leave a message in the comments or email us at sportygirlbooks@gmail.com. We love to hear from you!

*Please note that we have not read these books ourselves. Titles and descriptions come from the publisher's websites. The books are in no particular order.

#WomenInBaseballWeek Interview with Rajani LaRocca and Much Ado About Baseball

Today is the final day of this year's Women in Baseball Week. What better way to end the week than with an interview with one of my favorite authors, Rajani LaRocca, whose book, Much Ado About Baseball, was released in June!

Rajani was born in India, raised in Kentucky, and now lives in the Boston area, where she practices medicine and writes award-winning novels and picture books, including Midsummer’s Mayhem (2019), Seven Golden Rings (2020), Red, White, and Whole (2021), Bracelets for Bina’s Brothers (2021), Much Ado About Baseball (2021), and more. She’s always been an omnivorous reader, and now she is an omnivorous writer of fiction and nonfiction, novels and picture books, prose and poetry. She finds inspiration in her family, her childhood, the natural world, math, science, and just about everywhere she looks. 

Welcome to the Sporty Girl Book Blog, Rajani. We're so glad you could join us. Your main character plays baseball. Why baseball? Were you a baseball player growing up?

I didn't play baseball growing up, but my son played T-ball through high school ball, so I've been around a lot of baseball. I never appreciated the beauty of the game until I met my husband in college, and because of him, I grew to appreciate the pitcher vs. catcher duels, the sometimes leisurely pace, and the exciting plays on the bases.
 
Much Ado About Baseball combines baseball and Shakespeare. How did you come up with this idea?
I wanted to present the "other side" of the magical competition introduced in Midsummer's Mayhem, so I knew this story would involve Shakespeare and sports and math/science. I love Shakespeare's play, Much Ado About Nothing, which involves two main characters who have so much in common but can't stand each other until they get a little help from their friends. And I've always loved stories involving kids solving puzzles to save the day. So I ended up with a combination of Shakespeare, baseball, and math puzzles!

Tell us more about your main character, Trish.

When twelve-year-old Trish has to move to a new town again, she's worried about fitting in . . . especially as a girl who loves math and plays baseball. At her first summer baseball practice, she recognizes a teammate: Ben, the boy she beat in the spring's Math Puzzler Tournament. He can't stand her, and Trish knows he's going to discover her secret.
Ben hasn't played baseball in two years, and he doesn't want to play now. But once he realizes Trish is on the team, he knows he can't quit. And their team is terrible and can't manage to win a single game.

But then Trish and Ben meet a power-hitting older kid who tells them about his family's snacks that might help their team come together. And then they each find a book of mysterious math puzzles. Once they start solving the puzzles, they begin to form a tenuous friendship, and suddenly their team can't stop winning.

Then they come to a puzzle they can't solve, with disastrous consequences. Can Trish and Ben find a way to work together to find the "ultimate answer," or will they strike out when it counts the most?
 
What was your publication journey with this book?
This was a challenging book to write. I knew I wanted to write a companion novel to Midsummer's Mayhem, my debut. But it took me a long time to figure out how to write this narrative as dual POV, and to understand what the magical people in the book wanted. I found that writing a synopsis for the whole book really helped me figure out how everything fit together.
 
Do you have any favorite sporty girl reads? If not, what’s your all-time favorite read?
I love Lupe Wong Won't Dance by Donna Barba Higuera, Karen Day's No Cream Puffs and Jen Petro-Roy's Life in the Balance.

Thank you so much, Rajani! To connect with Rajani and learn more about her and her books visit her at www.RajaniLaRocca.com.