About the author:
Dawn (Parker) Brotherton began as a Missile Launch Officer in the US Air Force and continues to serve at the Pentagon in Washington DC. Her 26+ years of service have given her a variety of experiences to pull from. She has been stationed at many stateside bases as well as the Republic of Korea, Germany, and Italy. She was deployed for Operation Allied Force in Kosovo and is a contributing author for A-10s Over Kosovo.
She offers a unique perspective from inside the military with her first book, The Obsession and its sequel, Wind the Clock. She is currently working on the third book in the series, Truth Has No Agenda.
She is also an avid fastpitch softball player and coach. She has designed a new Scorebook that makes it easier to take notes and enables the coach to re-create the game at a later date to pull out lessons learned.
Inspired by her love of the game, Dawn is working on The Lady Tigers’ Series, fiction stories about a girls’ softball organization where the girls learn that being part of a team is about more than just playing softball.
About the book:
A charming tween tale that examines choices, consequences, friendships, family, and values, Trish’s Team is set against the backdrop of fastpitch softball.
Award-winning author Dawn Brotherton created Trish’s Team, book one in the Lady Tigers series, not only to highlight that being part of a team is more than what happens on the field, but to give girls the center stage in a story with a sports backdrop. Trish’s Team features Trish Murphy, a member of the Blue Birds, a recreational fastpitch softball team for 11 and 12-year-old girls. Trish Murphy longs to be a member of the Lady Tigers, the elite travel team and when she is presented with the opportunity to try out for the team, Trish jumps at the chance. There’s just one small problem—it seems Trish’s parents don’t understand her love of the game. Chances are they’ll be even less understanding and when they find out that team practice conflicts with Trish’s orchestra practice…
But being part of the Lady Tigers—and nurturing newfound friendships with the other team members—is Trish’s top priority. If she can’t make her parents understand how important this is, how far will she go to get what she wants? And how will her actions affect her friends, her family, and her team?
Book Review:
A very quick read for any adult and an easy, well-written one for young readers, I am quite happy that Trish’s Team is the first book in a series. Sports have turned completely into a massive money-making machine, drawing in legions of fans who spend hours, money, and emotional/mental energy on deifying teams and players.
But sports are about something else—something well worth the time, money, and energy, but for very different reasons, as outlined in this book. Ultimately, sports are about personal and community development.
Dawn Brotherton demonstrates this quite naturally and quite well in Trish’s Team. The main character leans a lot about both her own character as well as how to use her passion for softball to bring together her family and her team, instead of tearing either (or both!) of them apart. Other important lessons inherent in sports are imbedded into the story itself, such as commitment, discipline, humility, and good sportsmanship again in such a natural way that one is inspired to make sure one infuses one’s own sports-related involvements with the same.
Trish’s Team demonstrates for me how fiction can be extremely powerful in inspiring change even when it is a short and simply written story.
Add to bookshelf?
Yes.
Thank you to Maryglenn McCombs for providing a
copy of this book for me to review!