The Three-Year Swim Club - Book Review

So I finally finished Julie Checkoway's The Three-Year Swim Club, a book I had picked up a couple years ago at BookExpo. While the true story was inspiring (a group of ragtag kids from Hawaii get coached well enough by a local school teacher to make it to the Olympics - except then the 1940 Olympics are canceled due to war), the book itself was not exactly thrilling to read. There's a lot of swim meet data to get through (this kid swam in 4:52, this kid swam it in 4:20, and this kid swam it in 3:57) and a lot of side storylines that take you away from the main story, and sometimes you're not sure why for several pages.

I don't think the story could be told any other way, though. You certainly can't deduct important people to make the thing shorter, and it's important to know character background to understand what made the kids and adults tick.

And as much as this is a feel-good story about a team of swimmers who never gave up, it's also a story about race in America. Many of the Hawaiian swimmers were of Japanese descent, and when they toured the country swimming, they weren't always met with open arms. Because of the way they looked and the color of their skin, they weren't allowed to practice in the same pools as the other all-white teams. And then America forced Japanese-Americans into internment camps, but still recruited some of them to fight for America in the military. And one of the regiments that some of the Hawaiian swim team members were in (the 442nd) did so well in battle that they ended up receiving special commendation after the war.

There's a nice quote from FDR that starts this book: "Americanism is a matter of the mind and heart; Americanism is not and never was a matter of race and ancestry."

Now, of course, he's the one who signed the order for the internment camps... But there's a really great mini essay about all of this on the Quora website, so I encourage you to check it out.

Another part of the book I enjoyed reading was when the swim team went to Maplewood, Missouri, for a meet. It was cool to get a glimpse of my home state's history and even see pictures from the event in the book's photo section.

Overall, I enjoyed the story of how swimming changed the lives of these kids, their teacher, and the rest of the world.

The Three-Year Swim Club is published by Grand Central Publishing and is available on bookstore shelves. I received a free copy with no obligation to review.