Surfer Maya Gabeira has book deal with children’s publisher

NEW YORK (AP) — One of the world’s greatest big-wave surfers, Brazil’s Maya Gabeira, has embarked on a kid-friendly adventure.

The seven-time winner of the World Surf League Big Wave Award has a deal with Abrams Children’s Books for two picture stories and a young adult memoir. The first picture book, a fairy tale of “big waves and even bigger courage,” titled “Maya and the Beast” and illustrated by Ramona Kaulitzki, comes out Aug. 2.

“It’s been a dream of mine to share my story with children, in my own words, for a long time,” Gabeira said in a statement Thursday. “’Maya and the Beast’ is based on my own story: from a shy, asthmatic child to world record holder in the male-dominated sport of big wave surfing.”

Gabeira’s memoir, currently untitled, is scheduled for 2023. According to Abrams, the book will feature “as-yet-untold stories of the friendships, relationships, and personal challenges she encountered on the road to becoming one of surfing’s elite athletes.”

The 34-year-old Gabeira is credited by Guinness World Records for surfing the highest wave ever by a woman, more than 73 feet in Nazaré, Portugal in 2020.