Gymnastics Drills: Walkover, Limber, Back Handspring Book

Nadia Comaneci stole the world's hearts in the 1976 summer Olympic Games when she came out of nowhere to score the first ever perfect 10...and then six more. In Letters to a Young Gymnast, Comaneci writes as if she is replying to a pen pal's questions about her life. From her early childhood in the tiny village of Onesti, Romania climbing trees, to being spotted doing cartwheels by Bela Karolyi. To her intense training and sheltered life, to the Olympics (just another competition in her eyes), to growing up and clashing with her coaches. Nadia continues to describe her life under communist rule and the dead-ends where she found herself when she eventually decided to make the toughest decision of her life--to defect to the United States. With the fear of imprisonment or being shot in the back, she bravely snuck out into the Romanian night and headed the six hours on foot to Hungary. Her story doesn't end happily there, though; she has many years of hardships and misunderstandings in the U.S. before her fairy tale ending comes to light. Through it all, Nadia exhibits the grace and poise that has come to be synonymous with her name.

The darling and hero of the gymnastics world finally opens up about her life and it is interesting all the way through. Comaneci does a great job of expressing how *normal* her life was while training--she wasn't really a hero that she could seeand she definitely wasn't treated much better than other people (well, except for the three meals a day she was guaranteed). I feel that she kind of downplayed some aspects of her life like the training and her relationship with Karolyi, but overall it was a good glimpse into the life of a living legend who, until now, has kept her life very private.

Oh yeah--a lot of people have complained that the writing is not very good. Maybe it's not excellent, but considering that English is her third language,I think it's amazing!