Saturday, August 11, 2018

Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson

4th Grade and Up
Twelve-year-old Astrid has always done everything with her best friend Nicole. So, when Astrid signs up for Roller Derby Camp, she assumes Nicole will too. But Nicole signs up for dance camp with a new friend instead, and so begins the toughest summer of Astrid’s life.
There are bumps and bruises as Astrid learns who she is without Nicole and what it takes to be a strong, tough roller girl.

This is an excellent girl-empowerment book that every girl should read. Roller Derby girls are definitely tough and maybe a bit crazy to go out and slam into each other on skates for the sake of fun. 

The best thing about Roller Derby (in my opinion) are the creative derby names. Here are a few of my favorite names featured in this story:

Rainbow Bite
Slay Miserables
Napoleon Blownapart
Scream Soda
The Blast Unicorn
Little Bonebreaker
And the best one: the author, a bona fide roller girl herself, reveals her secret identity –
Winnie the Pow!

Another point this story makes is that some friendships don’t last. You make a friend when you’re young, when you get older your interests change and sometimes you just go your separate ways. It’s sad but that’s just the way things are sometimes.

Anyone remember when I posted ‘The Secret Treeby Natalie Standtford? In that story, Minty loved roller derby and was practicing her skating in the beginning of the story. Minty was so cute trying to come up with a tough Roller Derby name to go with her name but could only come up with ‘Minty Fresh’, which to me sounds cool. If you like Minty, you’ll love Astrid.


And if you like this graphic novel, check out the movie ‘Monster High: Friday Night Frights’. 
This weeks’ Weird but True Fact about Roller Skates
The man credited with inventing roller skates crashed into a mirror while showing off his new invention.

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