Olympic figure skater Karen Chen talks to Long Island kids

It isn’t every day that you get to meet an Olympic hopeful, but that is just the kind of day we had recently. We went to the offices of HarperCollins Publishing in Manhattan to interview figure skater Karen Chen before she took off to compete in the Olympics in South Korea. Karen finished 11th overall. As we waited for our interview, we nervously wondered what she would be like.

After a few minutes, we were ushered into a conference room for our interview. During the interview, we got to know plenty about what Karen did and how she prepared herself.

One of the questions we asked her was how she chooses the songs to skate to. Karen said she chooses her songs based on the connections she has with them. She also says that she chooses her songs based on herself, meaning that if the song relates to the experiences and adventures she’s had, she’s more likely to choose the song.

We also asked her about her education. Her response was kind of surprising yet predictable at the same time. Like many professional skaters, Karen, now 18, was home-schooled. She told us that the last time she sat in a classroom with other students was when she was in fifth grade! She also said she was always late to class because she would get up early every morning to go skate at the rink. This was partly the reason she switched to being home-schooled.

Then we asked her a little bit about her childhood and got an interesting response. She said she used to randomly dance to Disney princess songs, and she told us how her mom has videos of her just moving her body around the couch.

After that, we asked her questions about her career experiences. She loves winning and winning medals, and she always does her stretching before getting on the ice. She has broken her right foot — twice. But even though she’s had broken bones, she would still stay as active as possible.

When everything was wrapped up, we each received a copy of Karen Chen’s new book, “Finding the Edge: My Life on the Ice” (HarperCollins). We also took pictures with her, which was great. The interview went smoothly, and we were so happy to meet someone who competed in this year’s Olympics.

We loved her new book. It takes the reader on a ride on the roller coaster that Karen has been on her whole life. In the book, she tells about how she started out, what she did and what she will be doing in the future. She first stepped on the ice at age 4, but she wanted to pursue the sport even more at age 6.

The book also includes pictures of her with her family and coaches that nobody has seen yet. When you read the whole book, you will understand what sacrifices Karen and her family had to make just so she can keep doing what she loves. Those sacrifices include the hard work her parents had to do to afford costumes, traveling, etc.

We liked reading about her competing against much older girls. It was impressive! We learned from this book that in order to achieve something big, you have to work really hard — no shortcuts! We rate this book 5 smiles out of 5 for readers who are looking to read about this star’s adventure.