Play Like A Girl

Play Like A Girl

Play Like a Girl is a celebration of Aussie girls kicking goals in the sport they love!

Jo Stanley's Play Like a Girl is a spirited new series that weaves the ordinary world of young girls with the thrill and excitement of the AFLW. The books follow a group of young girls who play for The Flyers, the footy team of Milsborough West, a fictional inner-city suburb that lies to the west of the CBD. The Flyers are a diverse group of clever, cheeky, funny, deep thinking, strong and enthusiastic girls, all of whom love their footy, love their team, and love being fit and active.

The series begins with the coming together of The Flyers"18 girls from different schools, with varying skills and footy experience, all under the kind but eccentric leadership of their coach, Shawna McKinnon, whose team building and training methods seem weird and often hilarious to the girls. Of the 18 who join the full side, six girls bond quickly, and it's these six girls that the series focuses on.

Each book is told from the perspective of one of the six girls, each with a very different take on footy. The books explore themes of friendships and isolation, having a sense of belonging, bullying, body image, anxiety, success and failure, and family expectation, with a few annoying brothers thrown in. These girls are navigating their way through being 11 and 12 years old and learning about self-acceptance, gratitude, awareness of others, kindness, leadership.

Play Like a Girl will appeal to fans of The Baby Sitters Club and Go Girl!

Bring It On!
Introduces us to The Flyers via Sarah, who has just moved to Milsborough West. She has never played footy before, but Hanh, a seasoned player and passionate member of The Flyers, invites Sarah to try-out for the team. Sarah agrees, hoping it will be the start of some new friendships. But learning a new sport turns out to be much harder than Sarah expected, and she needs to find some special qualities in herself before she can take to the footy field.

Dream Team!
Three weeks into the season and coach, Shawna, is about to select the team Captain for the year. Hanh desperately hopes she will be selected, however, Rainbow is also a team favourite and a possible choice. Who will be selected? And how will Hanh handle the news?

Totally Epic!
It is the last few weeks of the season, before finals begin. The Flyers have been at the top of the ladder for most of the year, and are hoping to make it the Grand Final. Rainbow is super excited to be going to her first disco"the major fundraiser for the club"and hanging out with Lucy. But things start to go wrong when Lucy's cousin, Pina, who is visiting from another footy club, crashes their disco night and is inexplicably nasty to Rainbow.

Smashing It!
The Flyers are playing in the Semi Final. A win will see them into the Grand Final to take on the Jets, who thrashed the Flyers in the Grand Final the year before. Lucy is super excited to be heading for a re-match. But in the final quarter of the Semi Final Lucy injures her ankle and cannot finish the match. Now she is in a two week race to be fit to play in the Grand Final. Will she make

Jo Stanley is a comedian, writer, actor and presenter. She spent 10 years as one of Melbourne's most loved breakfast radio entertainers on the Matt and Jo Show on Fox FM, and can now be heard on Gold 104.3's breakfast show, Jo and Lehmo. Jo appears regularly on all networks of Australian television, on shows such as The Project, The Today Show and Studio 10. She writes for newspapers and magazines around the country, including a regular column in Sunday Life Magazine. Jo began as a stand-up comedian over 20 years ago, and so now uses those skills to bring a unique combination of outstanding professionalism and humour to her work as presenter. A self-described -footy tragic' and avid Collingwood FC supporter, Play Like a Girl is Jo's first book series.

Play Like A Girl
Five Mile Press

Author: Jo Stanley
RRP: $12.99

Interview with Jo Stanley

Question: What inspired the new series, Play Like A Girl?

Jo Stanley: They are the coming together of so many things that inform me and drive me. A love of footy, a commitment to spreading messages of gender equality, a desire to inspire girls to believe they can be anything they want to be, and the joy of books. Until now, I've been restricted to sharing these things with only my daughter. I'm ecstatic to be able to take my passions to a wider audience.


Question: Can you talk about the series partnership with the AFLW?

Jo Stanley: The launch of the AFLW has been profound for me, my daughter, and I think all girls. It represents aspiration and equality, two things that should always be a given for boys and girls. This is the world I've written about in the Play Like A Girl Series. So it was important to me that the link between my stories and the AFLW was realistic. I needed to be able to write about real players and real clubs, so that our readers connected their real lives with the fiction on the page. Having the AFLW endorsement allowed for that. As a writer, it's very exciting to have their support for my stories! It feels like it legitimises the football side of what I've created. And of course, their endorsement also means a much broader network of young people will be aware of the books, and hopefully will choose to read them!


Question: How did your passion for AFL (and Collingwood) motivate this series?

Jo Stanley: When I was growing up, I didn't play footy, but footy was a huge part of our family life. Every weekend we would go to see Collingwood play, and my love of footy has stayed with me and become a wonderful shared experience with my daughter. In creating the Flyers and their stories, I have drawn on many memories of footy games over the years, and the heart-in-mouth drama that makes it the sport we love.


Question: What was the best thing about creating the character of Shawna McKinnon?

Jo Stanley: I really loved making our coach, Shawna, as surprising and unusual as possible. She's an older woman. No one really knows how old she is, but her face looks like she's in her 60's. But I loved breaking stereotypes and giving her tatts and blue spiky hair and an ageless attitude. I think it's important women are written to be individuals, rather than stereotypes. Also, I really enjoyed giving her unconventional coaching techniques that were more about teaching the girls life lessons rather than just footy lessons. I borrowed from all different resources - life coaching, therapy, drama exercises and of course the AFL community coaching manuals - to inspire and inform her ideas. And then I also thought about what kind of coaching sessions would I love to go to if I was an 11 year old girl. I hope they sounded super fun!

Question: There are several issues raised in this book. Was this deliberate or did the story evolve this way?

Jo Stanley: Definitely deliberate. When I started mapping out the stories for each book, I started with the question 'what is going on in the lives of my readers?'. It's critical to me that the books are relevant to them, and that meant writing about themes that they are facing every day. So whether it was starting at a new school or feeling like you're a bit different from your peers or learning to get over failure, I wanted them to perhaps gain some understanding or inspiration that they can take into their own lives.

Interview by Brooke Hunter

 

Play Like A Girl
Five Mile Press
Author: Jo Stanley
RRP: $12.99