Common Sense Media Review
By Barbara Shulgasser-Parker
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based on child development research. How do we rate?
Inspiring docu about track star sisters has mature themes.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 10+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Watch
Videos and Photos
Sisters on Track
What's the Story?
In Brooklyn, NY, SISTERS ON TRACK, that is, Rainn, Brooke, and Tai Shepherd, all run track on a local team created to keep young girls off the streets and prepare them to earn sports scholarships to college. The girls' drive and hard work won them recognition at the Junior Olympics and featured them as "Kids of the Year" on the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine. All of this -- good grades too -- was achieved while they lived with their mom, Tonia Handy, in a homeless shelter. The mom struggles to find a job that pays better than minimum wage so she can support her girls. During an appearance on the TV show The View, Whoopi Goldberg informed them that actor-writer-director Tyler Perry was paying their rent for a year on a lovingly-furnished apartment until Handy could get back on her feet. The mom, who has battled many setbacks, has the support of coach Jean Bell and her sister and fellow coach Karel Lancaster-Williams. The girls themselves demonstrate so many stellar qualities -- intelligence, gratitude, decency -- even as they make mistakes and strive to correct them. This can serve as an inspiration to every parent, coach, and child struggling to survive in a tough world.
Is It Any Good?
This incredible story is sure to inspire both kids and parents. Sisters on Track is a moving documentary that offers perspectives not only from a struggling mom who lost her home and still raised three impressive daughters, but also from the coach that treats the girls like her own, and from the point of view of the three sisters themselves. As the young girls enter puberty, they speak with wisdom beyond their years, demonstrating that they've absorbed the good advice they've been lucky enough to receive, gifts that Coach Jean and their mom have given them.
The middle of the film veers slightly off-course as it looks at the girls navigating the social difficulties of middle-school life, but it rights itself when the focus returns to the girls' remarkable discipline, hard work, and honest self-assessments, all of which help them achieve the grades they need to earn scholarships to a private high school and head toward hoped-for college scholarships. If only every child could turn to the wise guides these girls have, the world would be a better place.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about how close the three sisters are as they support each other and hug each other in good times and bad. Who supports you, and who do you support?
Does the progress of these girls inspire you to overcome your own obstacles? How so? How do the girls demonstrate the character strength of perseverance?
Coach Jean is both loving and strict. Do you think she's effective? Why or why not?
Movie Details
- On DVD or streaming : June 24, 2021
- Directors : Tone Grottjord-Glenne , Corinne van der Borch
- Studio : Netflix
- Genre : Documentary
- Character Strengths : Perseverance
- Run time : 96 minutes
- MPAA rating :
- MPAA explanation : for thematic elements, brief sex-ed discussion, and some language
- Last updated : January 18, 2022
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