📚 Book🎬 Tweens · Ages 11–13Graphic Novels / Comics

Roller Girl (2015)

About This Book

Twelve-year-old Astrid falls in love with roller derby after attending a bout with her best friend Nicole, but when Nicole chooses ballet camp instead, Astrid has to navigate derby camp alone and face the terrifying possibility that she and her lifelong best friend are growing apart. Jamieson draws the roller derby scenes with kinetic energy, making you feel every hit, every fall, and every triumphant lap. The story captures that specific moment in growing up when you realize your best friend might not be your best friend forever.

Why It's a Classic

Victoria Jamieson drew from her own experience as an amateur roller derby player to create action sequences that crackle with authentic energy and detail, and she uses the sport as a perfect metaphor for the bruising experience of finding your own identity separate from the people you have always defined yourself through. The friendship between Astrid and Nicole avoids the easy resolution of most children's books about growing apart; they do not become enemies, and they do not magically reconnect, but instead find a new, more honest version of their relationship that acknowledges they are becoming different people. Jamieson earned a Newbery Honor for a graphic novel that captures the specific, painful, necessary process of figuring out who you are when you stop being half of a pair. The roller derby community embraced the book as a genuine depiction of their sport's culture of empowerment and toughness.

Fun Fact

Jamieson played roller derby under the name "Winnie the Pow" and incorporated real derby moves and terminology throughout the book. She has said that the friendship storyline was harder to write than the derby scenes because the emotions were drawn from real experiences of growing apart from childhood friends. The book inspired a measurable increase in youth roller derby enrollment after its publication.

Parent Note

The book deals honestly with the pain of friendships changing, which can resonate strongly with tweens going through similar experiences. The roller derby scenes involve physical contact and falls but nothing beyond what you would see at an actual sporting event. The mother-daughter relationship is warm and realistic.