Two children's picture books by Olympic gold-medal figure skating champion Kristi Yamaguchi (
Wikipedia) with illustrations by Tim Bowers, starring Poppy, an anthropomorphized pot-bellied pig with figure skating ambitions, are free courtesy of publisher Sourcebooks' Jabberwocky imprint.
These are NOOK Kids Read to Me books and will require a compatible device or app to read. Hat tip to the posters over at the B&N BookClubs forums for finding these. May or may not show up in the other stores later, but frankly there's a rather low rate of price-matching for "enhanced editions" of most stuff.
(ETA: Now also @ Amazon, for the first one, at least.)
And this has been the selected 3rd (non-repeat) free ebook thread of the day.
Because even though I don't bother to consider sports stars to necessarily be required to be role models as some seem to do, it's pretty nice to see a formerly famous world-class athlete actually have a constructive post-sports career committed to engaging and inspiring youth, instead of say, getting caught up in doping and domestic violence scandals and murdering their exes and so forth.
Enjoy!
Dream Big, Little Pig! @
B&N (also
UK) &
Amazon (available to Canadians & in the
UK).
"Follow your Dreams!"
"You go, Girl!"
"Dream Big, pig!"
Poppy is a waddling, toddling pig with big dreams. She wants to be a star! But she soon discovers that's not as easy as it sounds. It's only when Poppy feels the magic of gliding and sliding, swirling and twirling on ice that our most persistent pig truly believes in herself: Poppy, star of the rink!
It's a Big World, Little Pig! @
B&N (also
UK)
Poppy, the adorable, persistent, dreaming-big pig, has a new adventure in store for her: the World Games ice-skating championship in Paris! Poppy is nervous about meeting so many new people in a new place.
But, ever courageous and supported by her family (Emma, too!), Poppy embarks upon this exciting adventure head-on. She meets a snowboarding Panda, a Maltese who skies, and two fellow skaters, a Crane and a Kangaroo.
Poppy begins to realize that although these animals look different, act different, and are from different places, they are all the same at heart. They all smile in the same language!