A year ago I signed up for something called Oregon Battle of the Books. I was discussing with my team which book I should read, and they suggested Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson. At first I did not want to read it because I saw how thick the book was, and I thought it was a chapter book, so I did not want to read it, but I took the book home anyways, and I looked at the cover. It looked like it was some tips for girls who roller skate. I wanted to see what the pages looked like, and I was surprised. It was a comic book. I immediately sat on the couch and read the book. The book is about a girl named Astrid. She and her best friend, Nicole, do everything together, but when Astrid signs up for roller skating she thinks Nicole will sign up for it too, but instead Nicole signs up for dance classes. And from there on, there is so much change and struggle for Astrid, because she keeps falling while trying to do roller skating, she got made fun of a lot at camp, and her coach keeps saying negative things about her. Astrid’s dream is that she wants to be like Rainbow Bite, the best roller skater in the roller derby, but Astrid is still the worst on her team. Later on she keeps moving up the ranks from 12 to 9 to 4 because she keeps on practicing and practicing, and competes in the roller derby because she got so much practice. The theme of the book is friendship. Friendship is important, and if you don’t have friendship then you won’t have any fun in your life. I once had a friend that was really shy and barely ever talked to anyone except for the teachers. I saw that he would just sit in the corner every day during recess, so I asked him to come over to us and play, and now he is really popular in school, and he is happy because he had friends with him. I think that the author would want us to see in friendship that you will keep making friends on the way if you keep on trying hard. Another theme that I would say that fits this book is hard working because she had to keep trying to achieve her goal. An example is that she kept going to derby camp and kept failing and was the lowest in her camp, so she practiced hard by roller skating every day, and finally she got the hang of it because she did a lot of hard work. My favorite part in the story is where Astrid goes to derby camp. It is my favorite part in the book because that is where all of the trouble starts. For example she starts falling down a lot on her first try, and she was being made fun of because of that she keeps on struggling, but later on gets better. Read this book called Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson. Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson. Dial Books, 2015. Buy the book here and support Stone Soup in the process!