Shaylen Banks is an eleventh grader who’s strug­gling with the hur­dles of high school life; cute boys, mean girls, and academia.

A trau­matic child­hood inci­dent is respon­si­ble for her low self-esteem and lack of close friend­ships. And even though she con­sid­ers her life grim, the men­tion of one thing lights the fire in her eyes; cheerleading!

With Shaylen Banks as the main char­ac­ter, The Break­through recounts the exhil­a­rat­ing jour­ney of one sea­son of an All-Star Cheer Team.

From dis­ap­point­ing prac­tices, to trai­tors steal­ing rou­tines, to vic­to­ri­ous com­peti­tors, and ulti­mately, Nation­als, this book tells the story of ded­i­ca­tion, trust and determination…all nec­es­sary ingre­di­ents of a top notch All-Star Cheer Team!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR…

As a young girl, Ninha Fer­reira found ulti­mate excite­ment in the sport of foot­ball. Week after week, she sat in the stands while her uncle coached lit­tle league, and her broth­ers played. Watch­ing intently and learn­ing the game, she wished that she too could be on the field. One day, while she rest­lessly sat in the bleach­ers, she noticed a group of girls on the side­line. With a lit­tle research, she dis­cov­ered that they were cheer­lead­ers. She though to her­self, “If I become one of them, I can get closer to the foot­ball field!”

Although Ninha ini­tially used cheer­lead­ing as a tac­tic to get closer to the foot­ball field, she evolved to live, eat, breathe and sleep this new sport. Ninha cheered for lit­tle league and high school, began coach­ing at age fif­teen, and by age twenty-one, she co-owned and oper­ated an all-star cheer­lead­ing acad­emy. Teams that she has coached and con­sulted hold Regional Titles, State Cham­pi­onship Titles, and are nation­ally ranked. How­ever, her most notable acco­lade came by way of Con­gress­woman Bar­bara Lee, who hon­ored her cheer acad­emy for its ded­i­ca­tion to youth in the community.

All Star Cheer Arti­cles, Book 1: The Break­through is Ninha’s first pub­lished book. The Break­through is the first of a series of teen nov­els that focus on the juicy and excit­ing exploits of all-star cheer­lead­ing teams. Aside from writ­ing, Ninha is known mostly for her assid­u­ous work with young peo­ple, espe­cially girls. She remains in close con­tact with many of her for­mer cheer­lead­ers, and they do not hes­i­tate to con­tact her for advice, sup­port, or a lis­ten­ing ear. Focus­ing on rela­tion­ships, col­lege, career, hap­pi­ness and self-actualization, she men­tors young peo­ple with a focus on help­ing them reach their fullest poten­tial. Known for using the famous Tom Hanks line from A League of their Own, “If it was easy, every­one would do it,” she works dili­gently to keep her mentees on a pro­duc­tive and chal­leng­ing life track.

Presently, Ninha Fer­reira is vol­un­teer­ing her coach­ing ser­vices for var­i­ous teams around the Bay Area. Pro­fes­sion­ally, she works as an Ana­lyst for the City & County of San Fran­cisco. She holds both an MPA Degree from Seat­tle Uni­ver­sity and a BA Degree in Eth­nic Stud­ies, from Cal­i­for­nia State Uni­ver­sity, Hayward.

As an avid youth sup­porter, Ninha is always happy to meet and pro­vide insight to young peo­ple. She hap­pily accepts and responds to all e-mail inquiries, and can be reached at: ninhaspirit@gmail.com.  Or to pur­chase the book, visit: All Star Cheer’s Blog