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22nd out of 111 books
—
58 voters
Little Girls in Pretty Boxes: The Making and Breaking of Elite Gymnasts and Figure Skaters
by
Joan Ryan
From starvation diets and debilitating injuries to the brutal tactics of tyrannical gymnastics guru Bela Karolyi, Little Girls in Pretty Boxes portrays the horrors endured by girls at the hands of their coaches and sometimes their own families. An acclaimed expose that has already helped reform Olympic sports—now updated to reflect the latest developments in women's gymnas...more
Paperback, 269 pages
Published
August 1st 2000
by Warner Books
(first published 1995)
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Who knew gymnastics was so horrifying?
Joan Ryan’s Little Girls in Pretty Boxes is a chilling, sobering look at the world of women’s gymnastics, where the coaches yell and taunt at young gymnasts while their parents overlook – or exaggerate – the abuse, creating a culture of destroyed confidence, eating disorders an. It’s an unflattering portrait.
Ryan tells of the sad fates of several promising girls who were sucked into this world by their talent, chewed up and used by ego-driven coaches and, on...more
Joan Ryan’s Little Girls in Pretty Boxes is a chilling, sobering look at the world of women’s gymnastics, where the coaches yell and taunt at young gymnasts while their parents overlook – or exaggerate – the abuse, creating a culture of destroyed confidence, eating disorders an. It’s an unflattering portrait.
Ryan tells of the sad fates of several promising girls who were sucked into this world by their talent, chewed up and used by ego-driven coaches and, on...more
This is a scathing indictment of the figure skating and gymnastics communities and parents that wear young girls (mentally, physically, and emotionally) out in the search for the perfect princess to win the Olympic medal. It traces incidents of bulimia and anorexia, training and competing with broken bones and torn muscles, constant verbal abuse, and total lack of safety training. This was before the new figure skating judging system, so at the time much of figure skating judging was very subjec...more
Joan Ryan wrote a book, largely anecdotal, but with the findings of a few studies to back her up, about the harm done to girls, not those who simply learn gymnastics or figure skating, but those who are in the 'elite' class of either sport. This is an important distinction, as Ryan writes that girls who take gymnastics or figure skate learn a lot about competitiveness, self-esteem, and discipline, but for those few who fall into the elite category (the ones who practice for three hours starting...more
I read this for my book club. We were all amazed at the struggles that young gymnasts and figure skaters go through to reach the Olympics. After reading this book you will never look at gymnastics in the same way. However, I felt and the book club felt that there was no need to add the few figures skating stories to the book. They didn't really fit in. Maybe a different book about those struggles. Also, the book jumps around going from story to another and then back, again. As a magazine writer,...more
When you think ice skating or gymnastics, I'm sure you think of small girls gracefully flipping and jumping around in pretty leotards. The stories of Julissa Gomez, Christy Henrich, Karen Tierney, Erica Stokes, Kathy Johnson, Nicole Bobek, Amy & Karen Grossman, Holly Bragg, Kim Zmeskal and the many other girl athletes mentioned in 'Little Girls in Pretty Boxes' by Joan Ryan prove you wrong. The real world of these man-eating sports is actually starvation, hours and hours with harsh guru coac...more
Read this book again after excerpts of it were in one of the Best American Sports Writing books I read recently. It's quite dated, particularly because it ends just as the Magnificent Seven are preparing for the Atlanta Olympics in 1996. The book extensively covers Shannon Miller and her coach, and Dominique Moceanu appears just as the book ends. Interestingly Moceanu later came out to complain about abuse from the Karolyis, her stories mimic the problems described by Joan Ryan.
The ice skating p...more
The ice skating p...more
Little Girls In Pretty Boxes, Joan Ryan's exposé on women's gymnastics and figure skating, is a brutal read. It starts with an account of a teenage girl who broke her neck while performing on the vault, and it doesn't get any cheerier.
The book is well-written enough to be engaging, but it's so excessively negative in tone that it inevitably caused my hackles to rise. I suppose any exposé is likely to be biased, but Ryan seems so biased against gymnastics/skating that I inevitably found myself pl...more
The book is well-written enough to be engaging, but it's so excessively negative in tone that it inevitably caused my hackles to rise. I suppose any exposé is likely to be biased, but Ryan seems so biased against gymnastics/skating that I inevitably found myself pl...more
An interesting look at the world of elite gymnastics and figure skating and the effects on its young participants. I was particularly struck by the age of the girls competing in these sports. Most are barely out of junior high and they spend their time at all-day practices and endure debilitating injuries and sometimes eating disorders. The payoff? The slim possibility of an Olympic medal and endorsement deals that will pay off their gym bills. It definitely makes you look at the Olympics differ...more
Confirmed what I had already suspected about the way young gymnasts and skaters are treated by their coaches and parents on their quest for glory. Written in an approachable manner, this book outlines both general and specific stories about the rampant emotional and physical abuse these girls go to. Although dated now, this book is still very much applicable, I suspect. My only problem with the book was the author's treatment of Tonya Harding who she clearly despised. She criticized Tonya for th...more
If you don't know already, little girls are exploited by their unfulfilled, wildly competitive parents, emotionally & physically abused by their cruel and often perverted coaches, hit, starved, purposefully stunted, screwed over and mocked by the judges, forced to compete with debilitating injuries, and even put into mortal danger on outdated apparatuses. The fallout from their injuries, eating disorders, lack of formal education, isolation and emotional distress lasts a lifetime. Gymnastics...more
A scary expose of the life of elite gymnasts and figure skaters. Apparently it grew out of a newspaper article. Perhaps the best format would have been a long, Vanity Fair-type article. This is too long for the amount of information it contains. It is basically a collection of horror stories -- but in no pattern that I could discern. It would have helpful if they had been told chronologically, or in another way that created a narrative thread.
On Goodreads it appears that there is a more recent e...more
On Goodreads it appears that there is a more recent e...more
This is one of those books that makes you gasp, and sigh, and gasp again. While Ryan is extremely repetitive (I literally counted the same sentence about Kathy Johnston four times) and her chapter separation makes little sense, the book is insightful. As someone who was very young when the bulk of the American gymnastics turned child abuse happened, I have always seen Bela Karolyi as this awesome big teddy bear. I have thought those gymnast bodies are too good to be true, noticed the way the lit...more
One thing I must point out: If there is anyone who wishes to find out more about the sport of gymnastics, please, DO NOT read this book for advice. Seriously. Only read this book if you want to learn about how the sport has negatively impacted the lives of young girls. I have agreed with little of what the author said, and most, if not all, of the book irritated me. It was filled with horrible stories of athletes who went into a downward spiral from gymnastics and figure skating, abusive coaches...more
more about gymnasts than figure skaters, i read the version that included the 2000 epilogue. which is great, because the first version was written in 1995, before the americans won gold in atlanta. i'd still like to read a more recent book on gymnastics/ice-skating, but wonder if the fact that the country has had more success in the olympic arena has pushed down the urge to write about it.
there's a lot of heart-break in this book. girls who died as a result of bad vaults, or extreme eating disor...more
there's a lot of heart-break in this book. girls who died as a result of bad vaults, or extreme eating disor...more
I was a gynmast as a little girl. I wasn't ever any good, but I loved my classes and Mary Lou and Nadia were my heroes. As a disclaimer--I didn't read the updated book (my library doesn't have it), I read the original 1995 version. I completely agree with the reviewer who thinks that the introduction was quite misleading. The sexual abuse mentioned at the beginning as a big problem turned out to be little more than--it *could* be rampant when you have little girls training with adult men. I must...more
Not nearly as tawdry as promised. In the prologue it was all sexual abuse and this and that all over the place, but the book was mostly eating disorders and injuries. Eating disorders, eh, the ways losing 10 pounds in a week affect your gymnastics skills, no surprise there. Maybe it was more shocking in 1995 when this book was published.
The effects of hardcore training on little bitty bodies, that was pretty horrifying, and how nearly all coaches everywhere were all WORK THROUGH PAIN & INJUR...more
The effects of hardcore training on little bitty bodies, that was pretty horrifying, and how nearly all coaches everywhere were all WORK THROUGH PAIN & INJUR...more
This was good. I probably could have guessed at the content, that these girls/young women have eating disorders and are injured too often and train too hard while injured. Still, it was interesting reading.
My favorite part was the description of this one gymnast, whose parents didn't get caught up in the hype. They insisted that their daughter only train 20 hours a week (instead of the 40-60 hours the elite girls usually train) and that she not starve herself, etc. At the end of her high school...more
My favorite part was the description of this one gymnast, whose parents didn't get caught up in the hype. They insisted that their daughter only train 20 hours a week (instead of the 40-60 hours the elite girls usually train) and that she not starve herself, etc. At the end of her high school...more
Overall I thought this was an interesting book and learned a lot from it. I think its no secret that back in the day gymnastics and ice skaters were anorexic and their coaches were abusive, but there's more stories than just that. There's stories about how much injuries can cost you, about athletes filing lawsuits against their parents, and more. However, I thought the book was kind of repetitive and was disturbing (I recommend reading no more than 50 pages in one sitting!).
This book was sad to read. In any other setting if we did to children what happens to them in gymnastic and ice skating training, it would be called child abuse. Why is it OK to starve them, prevent the onset of menstruation, not set broken bones, and not put proper safety measures in place just so these girls might possibly, someday win a medal at the Olympics? I have two students currently who are training to be Olympic skaters, so this hit close to home for me.
This is about the environment of abuse and unbalanced stress involved in national sports where children reign over adults. Honestly, I learned a lot about elite gymnastics and figure skating, since I have never really taken the time to understand how those sports work. It hadn't occured to me why the contestests seem to get smaller and smaller...I assumed that they were younger and younger, and didn't know that they were purposefully physically stunted more and more (as well as being younger).
Al...more
Al...more
If you are a fan of gymnastics or figure skating, then this is a must read! It really takes a close look into the unspoken (and rather scary) sacrafices and rules that make gymnasts and skaters great. I really liked this book, and have such admiration for these athletes. I am very glad that books like this exist, to expose the inner workings of the making of these athletic careers. As shocking as some of the content is, I am glad it was used for change.
A bit dated now, but still extremely relevant in regards to the 2008 Summer Olympics with Shaun Johnson and her multiple gold medals. I could've done without the dramatic segues into each chapter and section, almost like a cliff-hanger and seeming incredibly ominous. It got tiring after a while. Also grating was the author's contact editorialising. Still a worthwhile read in regards to the subject matter and it shedding light on a not discussed topic.
Scary reading for a parent with children involved in sports. This book focuses on the injuries, eating disorders, emotional abuse, and pressure faced by girls competing at elite levels in ice skating and gymnastics-- noting that there is no licensing or particular education required for coaches, and that even Olympic medals rarely lead to the kind of lucrative endorsements parents envision for their young skaters or gymnasts.
Some people would argue that the most beautiful sports taking place in the Olympic Games are the women's figure skating and gymnastics events. In Little Girls in Pretty Boxes, Joan Ryan paints a bleak picture of the training, coercion, and even abuse that goes on in the attempt to create world class competitive athletes. After you read this book, you'll never look at these elite athletes in quite the same way.
Dec 13, 2012
Rachel
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Gymnastics and Figure Skating fans who want to know the truth behind the sport
I read this many years ago and it was incredible. The stories are very sad and harsh. I would really like to read the book again now, especially since I read Dominique Moceanu's Off Balance: A Memoir. If you enjoyed "Little Girls", I would definitely suggest reading "Off Balance."
I remember reading this in a high school school english class that focused on the aspects of competition. It was compelling to see what these young girls go through and how dedicated they are. As well as the pressures put on them. I thought of this book b/c now they have a TLC TV show "Toddlers and Tiara's", it makes me want to vomit!
Feb 04, 2009
Barchiebunch
added it
Great book, but I am forever spoiled from enjoying watching gymnastics or figure skating competitions again. This is a travesty against young girls, I guess ultimately I blame the parents more than the "system". This is an old book, C 1995, and I fear absolutely nothing has changed since it was written.
Even though this book is extremely negative about gymnastics and (a little less about) figure skating I think it's an important read for trying to understand the sports. It does make it seem like all gymnasts and skaters and coaches are screwed up ( not true!) but there are deffinatoy more problems than I initially thought. I enjoyed the pictures in the middle too so I could see the girls.
An informative and eye-opening look at the behind-the-scenes and after-the-medals world of gymnasts and figure skaters. America's obsession with young, small, beautiful girls has allowed formerly women's sports to take advantage of girls too young to know better. Very well written - informative with the right mix of statistics and personal accounts.
This was written before Tara Lipinksi won her gold medal. It was terrifying to read about the anorexia cases of the girls who come out of the Karoyli (sp?) gym. I couldn't watch gymnastics for years after reading this book. The breaking part of the book is truly heartbreaking.
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Aug 28, 2012 06:59pm