Courage to Soar: A Body in Motion, A Life in Balance

In the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics, Simone Biles completed her floor routine to rapturous applause. After years of training, she scored the gold medal in the all-around gymnastics event. Achieving such an accolade is the dream of gymnasts across the world. It had certainly been the dream of Simone since she discovered her love of gymnastics at an early age. Now, competing in the world’s biggest stadium, she had made her family, coach, and supporters proud. If there was anything that could possibly make this moment better, it was the fact that this would be the first Olympic gold medal Simone would win that summer. In her first time at the Olympics, she made history as the first US gymnast to earn four gold medals in a single season.

Simone’s extraordinary performance at the 2016 Olympics made her an international celebrity. She is now one of the most recognizable American athletes today and is regarded by many as one of the greatest gymnasts in history. While she had always been talented in gymnastics, her success at the Olympics had not come easily. It was the product of years of training, failures, and a refusal to give up on doing what she loved.

In Courage to Soar, Simone gives readers a personal account of her life before the 2016 Olympics. Readers will learn how Simone’s grandparents adopted and raised her and her four siblings. Then, a rainy, impromptu school trip to a tumbling gym led Simone to meet a gymnastics coach who would be by her side for her entire career. Simone sacrificed her high school and college experiences for gymnastics practice and competitions. Various failures even forced Simone to question if her hard work was worth it.

While such a detailed autobiography may be daunting, readers can rest assured that the story at no point feels like it is dragging. An outgoing and enthusiastic figure in real life, Simone writes Courage to Soar with a conversational and engaging prose that makes every chapter of her life enjoyable to read, from her World Championships to the time she had to convince her dad to buy her a zebra-striped steering wheel cover for her first car. At 313 pages, Courage to Soar is an accessible and reader-friendly book that will entertain readers interested in learning more about Simone Biles.

Regardless of your knowledge regarding Simone Biles or gymnastics, you will find Courage to Soar an entertaining book filled with humor, touching moments of familial love, and thrilling accounts of Simone’s competitions. Having showcased her gymnastics skills in numerous World Championships and Olympic Games, Simone shares her vulnerable moments of defeat and failure, including the many harsh criticisms she received directly or indirectly from critics and competitors. Rather than letting these setbacks define her, Simone chose to surround herself with supportive people, including her parents and siblings, who constantly cheered her on, and her coach, who always reminded her to view every competition as another chance to pursue her passion for the sport.

Whether or not you aspire to be an athlete or have any passion for sports of any kind, Courage to Soar is a heartfelt and worthwhile book. You will come away from it with a deeper understanding of one of the greatest living athletes, along with the important message that you may reach your dream if you keep trying. To meet more motivational women athletes, read Rising Above: Inspiring Women in Sports by Gregory Zuckerman.

Sexual Content

• None

Violence

• Simone describes an incident in her childhood when her sister was randomly punched by her friend Marissa. “Suddenly, I saw Marissa punch my sister!” Simone then “jumped on top of Marissa, shoving her down onto the grass.”
• Simone describes a classmate with behavioral issues who harmed himself when he got a bad grade. “Whenever he scored lower than [ninety], he’d dig his pencil into his arm, dragging it back and forth until he saw blood.”
• Later, Simone tries to stop this classmate by snatching his pencil. “What I didn’t realize was that [my classmate] had a pocketknife,” Simone writes. “I wasn’t prepared when he pulled it out and tried to stab my hand. Luckily, he missed.”

Drugs and Alcohol

• Simone’s birth mother lost custody of her children because of a drug addiction.

Language

• None

Supernatural

• None

Spiritual Content

• Simone is Catholic. Throughout the book, she thanks God for her many achievements. For example, she says, “God had given me the ability to do gymnastics in a powerful way.”
• Simone’s grandmother is unsure if she is ready to adopt Simone and her three siblings. These fears are assuaged when a coworker tells her about her own adopted child. “[God] sent that woman as a guardian angel to tell her everything would be okay,” Simone writes. “God himself was placing us in her care.”
• Simone describes her confirmation. She explains the process for readers unfamiliar with the practice, saying, “For Catholics, this moment signifies you have been fully welcomed into the Christian faith community, and that you have pledged to let God’s love and Grace guide you always.”

by Luke McCain