'Wilma Unlimited' - Read and Rise March 2025

This month we're celebrating Women's History Month and I'm starting things off with the unbelievable story of Wilma Rudolph in "Wilma Unlimited" by Kathleen Krull and David Diaz. 

I was searching the library for stories about amazing women and I wanted at least half the books I brought home to be about women I hadn't heard of, or maybe had heard of but wasn't really familiar with their story. I had never heard of Wilma Rudolph. The cover clued me in to the fact that Wilma was a gold medal winning runner. However, I was not at all prepared for her story!

Wilma was born in Tennessee in 1940. She was a small baby and no one expected her to make it through her first year. But with the care of her mother and father and 19 older brothers and sisters (yes 19! I can NOT even imagine raising that many children...) she made it through that first year and beyond. But she was still small and prone to sickness and when someone else in the family got sick, she got it two or three times worse. The part that is even more incredible is remembering that it's the 1940's - medicine is not what it is now PLUS her family couldn't afford going to doctors all the time AND there was only one doctor in town that would treat black people anyway. So Wilma made it through all these illnesses with her own strength and her mother's home remedies. 

But then things got even worse! When she was 5, Wilma got scarlet fever and polio and her left leg became crippled. And yet, not only did Wilma survive, she eventually learned to walk again with the help of a brace and then got strong enough to walk without the brace. And then there was no stopping her. She began playing basketball in high school and received a full athletic scholarship to Tennessee State University for track. 

Talk about resilience! The odds were completely stacked against her and Wilma overcame all of them, became the first person in her family to go to college, and then traveled to Rome for the 1960 Olympics and won 3 gold medals (after twisting her ankle!). I honestly think whenever I feel something is just too hard and I can't do it, I will remember Wilma and tell myself "If you want to do this, just keep trying!"

Featured Story: "Wilma Unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph Became the World's Fastest Woman" by Kathleen Krull and David Diaz

Activity: You can become an amazing runner too! Here are two great resources for running games for kids: Runs for Cookies and SplashLearn. 

If your kids want to see how they compare against Wilma, these were her medal winning times (I'm pretty sure I'd look like a slow turtle in comparison!):

100m - 11.0 seconds

200m - 24.0 seconds

400m relay - 44.5 seconds

Stay tuned for more stories about awesome women! I'm going to keep them coming all month!