Central Kansas Library System

This inspirational memoir by Olympic medalist Michael Phelps gives readers an up-close view of the swimming champion's record-breaking performance at the Beijing Games.

"Ren Yu is a swimmer. Her daily life starts and ends with the pool. Her teammates are her only friends. Her coach, her guiding light. If she swims well enough, she will be scouted, get a scholarship, go to a good school. Her parents will love her. Her coach will be kind to her. She will have a good life. But these are human concerns. These are the concerns of those confined to land, those with legs. Ren grew up on stories of creatures of the deep,...

"At sixteen, Hadley Moore knows exactly who she is--a swimmer who will earn a scholarship to college. Totally worth all the hard work, even if her aching shoulders don't agree. So when a guy dressed as Hollywood's latest action hero, Heath Hall, crashes her swim meet, she isn't amused. Instead, she's determined to make sure he doesn't bother her again. Only she's not sure exactly who he is. The swim meet isn't the first event the imposter has interrupted,...

"Holly's mom is a hoarder, and Holly is fed up with being picked on at school for being weird...and having the wrong clothes...and sticking out. All she wants is to be invisible. She loves swimming, because in the water everyone is the same. Ed goes to the swimming pool because everything else in his life has changed. In his old life, he had money, was on the swim team, and knew who he was and what he wanted. In his old life his dad hit his mom. Holly...

"As a child with polio in the early 1900s, swimming set Ethelda Bleibtrey free. The water released her from her pain and helped her build strong muscle--and a powerful spirit. From then on, from the New York beaches to the 1920 Olympics, Ethelda made a splash wherever she went"--

"Verónica has had many surgeries to manage her disability. The best form of rehabilitation is swimming, so she spends hours in the pool, but not just to strengthen her body. Her Florida town is home to Mermaid Cove, a kitschy underwater attraction where professional mermaids perform in giant tanks . . . and Verónica wants to audition. But her conservative Peruvian parents would never go for it. And they definitely would never let her be with Alex,...

Describes the life and accomplishments of Gertrude Ederle, the first woman to swim the English Channel and a figure in the early women's rights movement.

From the author of the international bestseller In Falling Snow, a beautifully written, heartwarming novel of a young woman swimmer in 1925 London 1925: Fifteen-year-old Catherine Quick longs to feel once more the warm waters of her home, to strike out into the ocean off the Torres Strait Islands in Australia and swim, as she's done since she was a child. But now, orphaned and living with her aunt Louisa in London, Catherine feels that everything...

Presents statistical analogies pertaining to the training and competition achievements of American swimmer and Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps, with illustrations.