The book describes Gertrude Ederle’s swim across the English Channel in 1926, the first woman to accomplish this difficult feat. Readers learn about the courage necessary for this defining moment in sports history. Includes Afterword, Author’s Note, Sources and Resources, Source Notes, Timeline.

Author Sue Macy and illustrator Matt Collins, who have also collaborated on such titles as Basketball Belles: How Two Teams and One Scrappy Player Put Women's Hoops on the Map and Roller Derby Rivals, join forces again in this picture-book about Gertrude Ederle, the first woman to swim the English Channel. An Olympic medalist and a champion athlete, Trudy, as she was known to her friends, set off on the morning of August 6th, 1926, hoping to swim from France to England. She had made the attempt once before, but had had to be pulled from the water. This time, she was determined to reach her goal - and reach it she did, becoming the sixth person (and first woman) to swim the Channel, and beating the record set by previous swimmers. Her feat was greeted with press acclaim, and helped to usher in new ideas about women in sports...

Trudy's Big Swim: How Gertrude Ederle Swam the English Channel and Took the World by Storm is the second picture-book biography I have read about this swimmer and her pioneering achievement, following upon David A. Adler and Terry Widener's America's Champion Swimmer: Gertrude Ederle, published back in 2000. I found it an engaging title, and although it is quite focused on its subject's crowning achievement - when Ederle returned home to New York City after her Channel swim, a ticker-tape parade was thrown in her honor - it does give more information about her subsequent career in the back matter. I was interested to learn that Ederle, who had hearing problems arising from a childhood bout of measles, eventually went deaf, and became a swimming teacher and coach for deaf children. Collins' accompanying artwork here, done in colored pencil and then enhanced digitally, is bold and expressive, capturing the excitement of the story. All in all, an appealing addition to any picture-book library, one I would recommend to picture-book readers who enjoy stories of unusual and groundbreaking athletic achievement. ( )

Gertrude Ederle, nicknamed Trudy, gave women hope all over the world by swimming the English Channel in 1926. She was the first woman to swim those 21 miles and she was the fastest doing it, too! With her coach and her family on the Alsace( the boat that followed), Trudy overcame a lot of hardship in the water to complete the feat and have the world cheer her name. ( )

The biography on Gertrude Ederle is about her accomplishment of swimming the English Channel. The book focuses on her life as an athlete and swimmer, mostly on her adventure in swimming across the whole English Channel. 1. Gertrude Ederle was only 20 years old when she swam across the English Channel and set the new world record. 2. Gertrude Ederle had previously set many swimming records and competed in the olympics. 3. When swimming across the English Channel Gertrude Ederle has a boat filled with her family and coach cheering her along the way, and she was not allowed to touch the boat or get on it at all during her swim. 4. Gertrude Ederle was 98 years old when she passed away. 5. Gertrude Ederle was completely deaf by age 22, and she made it her life career to teach deaf students to swim. ( )

I think what Gertrude Ederle did was incredible, but I felt as if the book could've exaggerated it a bit more. Not in terms of the response of becoming the first woman and having the fastest time to cross the English Channel, but in how huge of a task it was. I felt like the book originally portrayed this event as a usual thing and that it didn't matter if she attempted it, unless of course she succeeded. I would've like to see more of the drive and determination in the book that she obviously had portrayed not necessarily better, but more present. ( )