PickyKidPix is fascinated by child prodigies. Apparently, there are a lot of YouTube videos on them. By making me watch them, she illuminated several misconceptions I had about prodigies.
- Prodigies are not just in music and math. I didn’t realize there were rock-climbing prodigies.
- Is it nurture or nature? I would have thought the kid, Brooke Raboutou, with rock climbing world champion parents would be the best climber in the world. Not so, PickyKidPix told me. The girl, Ashima Shiraishi, without these champion genes, is actually the better climber (as of this moment).
PickyKidPix taught herself to rock climb last year. She went to Central Rock Gym nearby on a Friday night or a weekend with a friend and she’d climb for hours. I had dreams that this is how she’d spend her teenage weekends … in this safe tree-hugging environment rather than at parties out late at night. Not so, alas. After an intense winter of climbing last year, she has not been back.
I have to wonder if she tired of doing the climbs because they were no longer new, or if discovering prodigies in her midst discouraged her. I’m not sure.
In any case, here are the two rock-climbing prodigies that we discovered. Both are young girls.
These Girls Can Climb: Rock Climbing Prodigies
11-year-old Brooke Raboutou is a rock climbing phenom who regularly breaks world records on elite bouldering and sport climbs once thought impossible for someone her age. With two former world champion climbers for parents and coaches, Brooke’s pedigree is unmatched.
Ashima Shiraishi can scale boulders and rock faces that most people twice her age simply can’t. The 14-year-old New York native started climbing boulders in Central Park when she was just six years old and hasn’t looked back since.
My books:
Amazon / Signed or Inscribed by Me
Amazon / Signed or Inscribed by Me
Food for the Future: Sustainable Farms Around the World
- Junior Library Guild Gold selection
- Massachusetts Book Award Long List
- Selected as one of 100 Outstanding Picture Books of 2023 by dPICTUS and featured at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair
- Starred review from School Library Journal
- Chicago Library’s Best of the Best
- 2023 INDIES Book of the Year Awards Finalist
- Green Earth Book Award Long List
- Imagination Soup’s 35 Best Nonfiction Books of 2023 for Kids
Amazon / Barefoot Books / Signed or Inscribed by Me
Amazon / Scholastic / Signed or Inscribed by Me
