Book Review: Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson

 Astrid and Nicole have been best friends since first grade. They do everything together including cultural enrichment activities put together by their mothers. One of these activities is a trip to the local Roller Derby team The Rose City Rollers. Astrid is hooked. She signs up for the roller derby camp The Rosebuds thinking Nicole would sign up as well. However, Nicole signs up for a ballet camp with a friend from school whom Astrid can not stand.

On the first day of camp, Astrid omits that Nicole is not going to camp with her. She shows up, and is terrified to learn that as the newest Rosebud she is the smallest, weakest, and can't keep up with the other girls skating. After the first failure of a day with a walk across town to get home, will Astrid keep going to roller derby camp? What will happen when her mom finds out Nicole is not at the camp? Will Astrid make friends at camp and can she figure out who she is outside of Nicole's friend? Astrid struggles with identity, and the bumps and bruises acquired learning how and what it takes to be a strong, tough roller girl.

This book looks at the idea of identity. Finding out who you are, and who your friends are as you move into your teenage years. Astrid is struggling with her identity as her interests and her best friends interests are starting to diverge away from each other. It's been a long time since I was Astrid's age, but I remember the struggle with trying to be true to myself while also trying to conform  to those interests of my girlfriends who were much more interested in popular fashions and trends. A journey of discovery that continued well past those pre-teen and teenage years.  

Book Review: Be Prepared by Vera Brosgol

 

Nine year old Vera is a Russian girl living in the suburbs of upstate New York. She just wants to fit in with her peers. She tries to recreate the successful birthday party sleepover (unsuccessfully to her embarrassment), she goes to school, she attends Orthodox church services. Every summer she watches the girls and boys in her class go away to summer camp.  She desperately wants to go away to camp. So when a friend from church mentions Russian camp, and that the church will pay the tuition fees for it, Vera embarks on a campaign to convince her mother to send her and her younger brother to camp the following summer.

So, during the summer between fourth and fifth grade Vera (who is almost ten) and her brother embark on an adventure to a Russian Orthodox scout camp in rural Connecticut. Vera imagines a place where she will make a best friend, and live out what she has heard about camp from the girls she knows from school. Instead, she is placed in a tent with Sasha and Sasha, two fourteen year old's who have been attending camp together since they were six - whom Vera has nothing in common with. Vera struggles with aspects of camp - The dreaded Hollywood (a spider infested outhouse), washing one's hair in the lake, and morning ablutions in the stream. Combined with the fact that Vera is having a hard time making friends, navigating the Russian history lessons, and attending church services outdoors in the rain camp is a miserable experience. But when her mother shares that she is extending the siblings time in camp because she needs to travel for a job interview Vera is crushed. Instead of going home, she has to navigate  the now familiar routines of camp life, can she make a friend and survive the following two weeks?

Be Prepared is based on the experiences of Vera Brosgol when she attended camp as a child. The story strikes authentically with the experiences of an immigrant child trying to fit in. I was happy to find this in the bundle of graphic novels I received recently, as I loved her first book Anya's Ghost. The artwork in this was poignant and the brown and green shading really made the melancholy feeling Vera (the protagonist) has during her camp experience.  In addition, I loved the way the book ends and I hope we see another volume with Vera and her family as they move to another country for her mother's new job.