The second installment of the Perfect Balance Gymnastics series features Savannah, the youngest member of the Level 3 team, who is in second grade. Savannah and her teammates are about to attend their very first competition meet, and I thought the depiction of nervousness at a new experience was spot on. As the shortest member of her team, Savannah has to lead them every time they march to a new apparatus. I can remember being mortified as a kid when a teacher spontaneously asked me to lead something I wasn't prepared to do. What if I did it wrong? And Savannah is feeling these nerves on top of having performance jitters, especially on her beam routine. As this is her first real meet, it made sense that she had a lot of questions and wasn't sure exactly how things worked. And the parent pressure was spot on as well, expecting things even from someone so young at her first meet.
Savannah also has deal with some friend drama at school when her closest friend starts hanging with the popular mean girl, who is jealous of Savannah and purposely excludes her. All of this felt age-appropriate as well. The concept of having more than one friend hasn't been discovered yet for many second graders. But they are learning who true friends really are, and in this case, that would be Savannah's gym friends.
My biggest complaint about this story would be that Savannah is referred to, even by her peers and maybe even herself, as being little and cute multiple times. Kids generally don't describe themselves or their same-age peers that way. They see themselves as stronger and more powerful than adults see them. But otherwise, I thought this was a decent representation of the life of a second grade gymnast.