Dorothy has come to live with her flamboyant pink-haired grandmother, a retired mortician who lives in the top floors of an old funeral home. She has the worst first day at her new school: Grandmother drops her off in a hearse, then she trips in front of everybody, and later gets pummeled in a vicious dodgeball game during PE. Because she fainted, the school nurse allows two girls to accompany her home (I can’t imagine any school where this would actually occur?) They soon become friends. Not long after, Dorothy finds out that one of her new friends is a jam skater (dance) and her wacky grandmother used to play roller derby. Grandma declares she’ll teach them how to play, and they get (somewhat accidentally) signed up for a junior derby competition. With just a few weeks to prepare. Most of them don’t know how to play, Dorothy can barely skate at all, and yet others take to it very easily. (Her younger sister can do cartwheels in skates right off the bat). So they practice hard and scramble to learn some strategy. There’s confrontations with a mean cheerleader group from school (who bully and drag them around the local rink in an all-out fight), the rink might be haunted (rumors of a ghost abound) and Dorothy is awkwardly attracted to Max, who works at the rink and referees bouts. The place is very run-down. By the end of the story, Dorothy and her two new friends have put together a complete team (including one small extremely energetic goofy girl very like Jules from the Derby Daredevils), she’s discovered she was wrong about one of the cheerleaders who is now also a teammate, and she’s had her first kiss! And earned a bunch of bruises and a few wins in roller derby.
I liked this story for all the details on skating, and all the skate names and how they come up with them, are just great. But some things seemed very unrealistic- like how quickly they got into the competition, or that an injury was treated on the rink floor in the middle of a bout, or how Dorothy skated to school the day after trying skates for the first time (I’ve been practicing on outdoor surfaces for weeks now, and no way am I ready to brave streets, crossings, hills, or even uneven sidewalks!) Granted, she did arrive sweaty, exhausted and scuffed, though. There was also a weird interaction with a very irresponsible absentee mother who shows up for one day, protests roller skating as a dangerous activity, gets shot down by her own daughter, and meekly disappears again. The teachers were all over-the-top too, either depicted as being super mean, or way too casual about everything. I can’t count the number of times I read a scene including teachers and students, and just stared at the page: who talks that way?
I’m noticing what I think are probably regular tropes in skating stories, now: the somewhat crazy, theatrical older woman who teaches younger girls the sport. The patched together team of girls who don’t fit in, in other ways . . . I did really like how this book presented the bouts. The gameplay wasn’t described in text but shown in lively illustration panels almost like graphic novel pages. Very stylized, energetic and fun artwork by Alece Birnbach. I’m looking forward to reading more in this series.
Borrowed from the public library.
