GLIDE & CARVE

The mountain does not care how fast you want to go. It cares only about how well you listen.

Welcome to the Grand Finale of the Little Champions series! GLIDE & CARVE! takes young readers aged 8-12 on a journey from 8,000-year-old wooden skis to the halfpipes, big-air jumps and racecourses of today's Winter Olympics. Along the way, it teaches them to ski and snowboard with skill, confidence and respect for the mountain.

Snow sports are different from every other sport, because the arena is alive. This colourful, fact-packed handbook explains how mountains, weather and snow really work. It shows how to choose and use every piece of kit, and it teaches the safety rules every skier and snowboarder must know. Everything is written in clear, friendly language that children can read on their own or share with a grown-up.

Inside, young champions will discover:

• The story of skiing and snowboarding, from Norse legends and the Birkebeiner warriors to the invention of the "Snurfer" and Olympic freestyle

• How to read a mountain: aspect, gradient, the tree line, wind chill, white-outs and piste-map colours

• Every piece of ski and snowboard kit explained, from helmets and goggles to bindings and the three-layer clothing system

• The FIS Code of Conduct, the avalanche danger scale, and why you always stay on marked runs

• Step-by-step progressions from the snowplough to parallel turns and carving, and from the falling leaf to linked snowboard turns

• The whole family of disciplines: downhill, slalom, cross-country, biathlon, ski jumping, moguls, halfpipe, slopestyle and big air

• The science of snow: gravity, friction, terminal velocity, how snowflakes form and why skis slide so well

• How cold, altitude and sunshine affect the body, and how snow sports build focus, courage and flow

• Inspiring true stories of champions Mikaela Shiffrin and Eileen Gu

Packed with hands-on learning:

• 10 Chapter Challenge pages

• TRY THIS! activities on and off the mountain, including a mountain temperature calculator, a gravity calculator and a find-your-stance test

• THE MOUNTAIN boxes on nature, glaciers and our changing climate

• MOUNTAIN SAFETY boxes that build lifelong good habits

• A 56-word glossary, a 17-star Champion Star Chart and a Series Complete celebration

Perfect for children planning their first ski holiday or indoor-slope lesson, young Winter Olympics fans, classroom and homeschool learning, and every Little Champions reader ready to finish the series on a high.

Twelve books. Twelve sports. One champion: you. The mountain is waiting.