A Chance to Fly: Essays, Poems, and Art from Starlings Girls

Within the pages of this book, A Chance to Fly, there lies a separate universe, a world apart. The reader is allowed to tiptoe through the realm of the adolescent girl, without changing, disturbing, criticizing or rearranging a single thing. And what a rare privilege this is. Starlings Volleyball Clubs USA is a national non-profit organization that provides opportunities from coast-to-coast to girls of every socio-economic stratum to play club volleyball regardless of their zip code. Starlings celebrates its 10th anniversary with the publication of this book of poems, essays and art by the Starlings girls themselves, deftly edited by Byron Shewman, a co-founder of the Starlings in 1996. You will be deeply moved as you read page after page of the innermost thoughts of girls as irridescent and seemingly fragile as the small birds for which they were named but as resilient as the stars in the firmament. There are stories here that will break your heart, such as that of the only girl child of Vietnamese refugees, a victim of life-long verbal abuse from her family, who found volleyball and the Starlings, which quite literally saved her life. There are stories and poems from the Navajo reservations of Arizona, such as the one from Sherry Hudson of Tuba City, AZ, which begins poetically, with a recitation of her ancient Navajo lineage, ". . . Bitterwater . . . Edgewater . . . Black Streak People . . . Towering House People . . . ." There is the gritty, flashy poetry in the urban cadences and vernacular of Oakland, Philadelphia and New York. There are the memories of long-time coaches and club directors, volunteers all, in the most magnanimous way. In the beginning, the Starlings girls whose work is featured in this remarkable collection may have walked into a gym to try out for a volleyball team. What they found, in addition to their sport, was much the same as what Dorothy found on the yellow brick road to Oz, companions like themselves who have heart, courage and brains and friends who have become like family even when home sometimes seems so very far away. Support the Starlings. Buy this book.

I found this book to be very insperational. I highly recommend this book for readers young and old. It will lift any spirit.

great book. would recommend it to anyone with a heart. the book has so much to offer. makes you want to help. 2 thumbs up.

This book is an excellent read for anyone who coaches, plays, or is a fan of volleyball.