Two opposing personalities duke it out on the tough tracks of 1940s New York roller derby!

I picked up this book because it's nominated for an award and because I have a mild curiosity in all things roller derby. I must say I did learn a great deal about the sport through this book. For instance, I had no idea that roller derby dated back as far as it does. The timeline / fun facts at the back of the book were incredibly informative and added to my knowledge base regarding roller derby quite a bit.

That being said, the story itself was kind of disjointed and surprisingly not very easy to follow for a children's book. It felt as though the reader was dropped in mid-story and was trying to play catch up as to what was going on in the plot. Both the climactic scene and the ending were just kind of there -- not a whole lot of emotional punch or sense of storytelling with either. The illustrations didn't help much with the overall effect. There was a great deal mentioned in the text about how one derby star was the "glamour girl" and the other was basically the hard-knocks girl, but the two looked remarkably similar. This didn't help with either making the illustrations fit the text or helping the reader decode what was going on in the illustrations or the story at any given time.

Other than the supplemental materials at the back gathering information about the history of roller derby with some highlights on the sport's biggest moments, I found this book disappointing. A clearer narrative arc and more fitting illustrations would have been greatly beneficial to describing a historical moment that was probably really quite something to behold. ( )

A very cute book on a rivalry that two women had on the roller rink. Gerry was the sweet, innocent, pretty girl who ruled the roller derby. Toughie was the underdog who played the villain. These two girls need each other in order to succeed on the rink. ( )