56 pages • 1 hour read
Bethany HamiltonSoul Surfer
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2004A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Key Figures
Bethany Hamilton
Bethany Hamilton is 13 years old during the events related in Soul Surfer. She lives on the Hawaiian island of Kauai and is a successful surfer with a fierce competitive streak and, like all competitive athletes, a willingness to withstand inconveniences and injuries in pursuit of her athletic goals. Hamilton has two older brothers, who are also athletic and who push her to succeed, and supportive parents who are also surfers. Hamilton is a devout Christian, with a large community of friends from school, the island, her church group, and fellow surfers.
The story of the shark attack on Hamilton would be short were it not for Hamilton’s message of faith, which allows others to find inspiration in her resilience and positive attitude. Hamilton’s handling of the attack and loss of her arm exhibited a maturity and depth of understanding beyond her years, and because of this, the media clamored for more interviews. Soul Surfer is the natural result of people wanting to know more about Hamilton and how a young female athlete could face the future with only one arm with such optimism.
Soul Surfer incorporates several elements designed to draw the reader into Hamilton’s world, so that even the urban reader who has never seen the ocean can find a piece of common ground with Hamilton, who, despite her unusual circumstances and exceptional story, is, in this 
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