Heidi Heckelbeck 19 – Heidi Heckelbeck Tries Out for the Team

Wanda Coven's Heidi Heckelbeck Tries Out for the Team is a funny magic story for 6 year olds about a girl who's quite sure she stinks at sport.

What happens

Heidi's school is starting an after-school sports programme and everybody gets to pick something. Lucy wants soccer. Bruce wants baseball (he says it's all science, which is very Bruce). Heidi has never really been the sporty type.

So the principal does her a special deal. She can try as many as she likes.

Soccer comes first, in a skirt and tights, because nobody told her about the kit. At baseball she finally hits the ball and then runs all the bases the wrong way round. Volleyball ends with Heidi, the ball and the net in one big heap.

By the time she's face-planted over a hurdle at track, she's dying of embarrassment.

Melanie Maplethorpe makes it all SO much worse. She's joined the cheerleaders, and she starts making up cheers about Heidi's disasters. The whole lunch hall laughs at the first one. So Heidi tells her she's joining the cheerleaders too.

And Heidi has a Book of Spells, with a whole chapter on sports.

Getting the ingredients is half the fun. There's grass from the soccer pitch, dirt from home plate, a pom-pom off an old ski hat and one drop of pool water (taken with an eyedropper, while a girl in a swimming cap asks what she's up to).

You can probably guess that a spell for being brilliant at sport doesn't stop at cheerleading. Who wouldn't want to watch Heidi score in three different games in one afternoon, with the principal chasing her the whole way?

You get what Heidi mutters to herself as well as what she says out loud, which is where most of the jokes are.

If your reader has tried a club and hated it, they'll probably recognise all of this. Heidi just hasn't found her thing yet, and Mum's idea that a sport might find you instead is a lovely one to chat about.

This is the nineteenth Heidi Heckelbeck book, but it's a story all of its own.

What to read next

If they'd like another go at Heidi hunting for the one thing she's good at, try Heidi Heckelbeck Is Ready to Dance. There's a talent show a week away, Melanie says Heidi has no talent at all, and Heidi tries painting, kickball and singing before she reaches for a spell.