Hey, it's MPR's book of the day. I'm Andrew Limbong. I think young phenom athletes have a different

relationship to aging and time than the rest of us. Take Jordan Childs. She's an American gymnast.

She's been to the Olympics. She's gotten medals to her name and she's still in her early 20s.

She's got a new memoir out titled,

I'm That Girl, Living the Power of My Dreams. And in it, she details some pretty heinous things

that happened to her early on in her career, simply because she didn't look like other gymnasts.

She didn't match someone's aesthetic ideal of a gymnast. And in this interview,

NPR's Juana Summers asks how she stayed so clear-eyed during all of that. And Child says she

wasn't clear-minded at all between the ages of 12 and 16, as if by 17 she'd reach some greater understanding of the world.

Because I guess by virtue of career, she had to.

That's up ahead.

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In her new memoir, the gymnast Jordan Childs describes her journey from a hyperactive kid who

couldn't talk unless she was bouncing around the house to a two-time Olympian decorated with gold

and silver medals. But reaching such heights and gymnastics was never a sure thing. She writes that

in her mid-teens, she thought seriously about quitting the sport

and tell a pivotal conversation

...