I was a swimmer when I was a kid. Backstroke was my specialty. (I liked it because it’s easy to breathe when you’re swimming on your back!) But swimming is an individual sport. I had a lot to learn about teamwork.
When you’re playing on a team, you want to make sure that everyone is doing his or her best. When one teammate stumbles, the others help her up, just like in a family. Sometimes friends or teammates can seem like enemies. You might feel jealous of them or want to beat them. We all have feelings like that occasionally. The trick is to learn how to get past them.
Maggie is feeling threatened by two people in this book: a new volunteer at the clinic and a new girl on the basketball team. She has to find it in her heart to work with them both, instead of trying to drive them away.
If you ever find yourself in the same situation, I hope you’ll remember how Maggie worked things out.
Laurie Halse Anderson